Sins Don't Kill Nightingales
by freesparrowsky
Summary: There's a new criminal in town, in prison to be exact, and she's helping the Gotham Police decipher the new clues left by a notorious criminal, what will the existing criminals do about it? Rated T just in case
1. Chapter 1

The dull white wall of a high-security cell slid open, three trained officers advanced into the bright space beyond, two with guns held tightly, the third with a taser and a pair of handcuffs. A small form was sitting on the edge of the white bunk, hunched over her hands, she turned sharply observing the three men, each dressed in dark blue, she smiled grimly. The tallest officer flinched as she made eye contact with him, her huge gun-metal grey eyes cold and sunken into her white face.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, officers?" she said, her voice raspy.

None of the navy clad men responded, they simply set about their work, handcuffing the woman carefully, checking her for any weapons concealed on her person and escorting her out of her cell for questioning.

"Now, you aren't going to be like this are you?" she smiled at the tall officer.

He grunted.

The prisoner's chapped lips turned higher into her grin, cracking and bleeding, she pressed her lips together momentarily, when they curved back into a smile they were cherry red with blood.

"Awe, now, Adam, can't you talk to me?" the woman said in a silky voice, she moistened her bloody lips with her tongue. "I just want someone to talk to. A little comfort. Being in that cell month after month gets rather lonely, you know."

"Miss, we can't," the wider officer said sharply.

"But you just did Jimmy," the dark haired woman nearly sang.

Jimmy shut his lips tightly, glares emanating from his partners.

"I see how it is," the woman said, using the back of her hand-cuffed wrist to wipe a trickle of blood from her chin as they reached a secure door. "Thank you for your excellent escort services, I appreciate them, but I think Mr. Gordon can take it from here. And so gentlemen, I bid you adieu."

With that, the girl was taken by Jim Gordon and led into the little interrogation room; she smiled at her three escorts, a glint of hysteria in her gun-metal grey eyes.

The interrogation room was small and stuffy, one flickering light and one reflective glass window where people could watch from the other side, two chairs, one on either side of the dingy metal table and a faint smell of camphor or formaldehyde.

"Miss Nightingale," Mr. Gordon said, putting his glasses on, carefully adjusting them on the bridge of his nose until he was satisfied that they were on properly. "Do you know why you are here?"

"I was informed that I was a computer terrorist," the woman said blandly, blinking twice.

"Yes, Miss. Nightingale-," Jim began.

"Please, call me Milo," the girl who sat across the little table from Jim Gordon.

"That is neither here nor there," Mr. Gordon replied professionally.

"I think you'll find that it is," Milo grinned, scabs on her lips re-opening and fresh blood trickling over her bottom lip. "But really, why am I here, in this particular room being interrogated? Can you tell me that?"

"As a matter of fact, I can," Jim Gordon said, adjusting his glasses again. "We have a proposal for you."

"Again?" Milo asked, a smile on her lips but ice in her eyes.

"Yes, Miss. Nightingale," Mr. Gordon sighed. "Again."

"Well shoot then," Milo instructed, leaning back in her chair, shaking the sleeves of her orange jumpsuit back and placing her constrained hands on her crossed knees.

"We would like to offer you a post here," Mr. Gordan said hesitantly.

"A post? Like a job?" Milo asked, her eyes narrowing.

"Yes," Jim Gordon replied. "It would seriously reduce your sentence."

"Okay," Milo murmured. "What does this…position require?"

"We need someone to find out what the computer chips that are being left at various crime scenes mean, we need someone who has a rather strong knowledge of computers and an-er- illicit background. Someone like you, no morals."

"Uh-huh," Milo said, brushing back a strand of long tangled hair behind her ear. "There's something else you want, isn't there?"

"We would need you to tell us how you managed to make the majority of Mr. Wayne's fortunes disappear, all without leaving your cozy little apartment," Jim said, disconcerted that Milo knew when he wasn't telling her something.

"I told you I didn't do it," Milo said, grey eyes slits in her thin face now.

"How do you explain it just vanishing?" Jim snapped. "No one else could have-."

"You're right," Milo interrupted. "No one else could have, so it must be me. But it wasn't. You have no evidence that I stole this Mr. Wayne's money, you cannot charge me and therefore you cannot ask me what I did with it because as far as the court is concerned, I didn't steal any money from Mr. Wayne."

"But you have committed similar crimes in the past," Jim stated.

"That's why I'm here," Milo sneered. "Or do you not bother to read your own reports?"

Jim's eye twitched in irritation.

"If you didn't take Bruce's money, who did?" Jim said, instantly regretting using Bruce Wayne's first name.

"On first name terms are we?" Milo laughed. "Fraudulent checks, yes, that was me, extorting money and other valuable items, me also, hacking Mr. Wayne's accounts, no, not me."

"Mr. Wayne is of a different belief Miss. Nightingale," Jim said harshly.

"So are all the other people on the street, why does Mr. Wayne care so much?" Milo snapped.

"Because it's personal, it's his money that's gone, he needs it back," Mr. Gordon hissed. "In fact, he's here to speak with you personally."

"Absolutely lovely," Milo beamed. "Send him in and he can tell you that I said the exact same thing that you've just heard. Won't that be a great waste of your time?"

Mr. Gordon stood abruptly, his chair clattering, pushed onto its back legs, it tipped backwards and halted. Milo looked at it with a bemused expression on her face as Jim Gordon exited the cinder block room, running his hand through his grey and black hair in frustration, hunched slightly beneath the fabric of his wrinkled suit.

He was replaced quickly with a tall, dark haired man dressed in an immaculate suit; an expensive watch glinted on his wrist as he stepped into the room, black loafers clacking on the floor. He set Gordon's chair back up and seated himself carefully.

"By all means," Milo grinned lopsidedly. "Take a seat, please, I insist, No really, it's fine, do sit."

The man tilted his head slightly.

Milo imitated him, her gun-metal grey eyes glinting in the harsh lighting.

"I am Mr. Bruce Wayne," the man said smoothly.

"I know who you are," Milo snorted. "Mr. Wayne, Gotham's shining star, Mr. Playboy himself, come to pay little old me a visit."

"You could say that," Bruce replied.

"I just did," Milo quipped.

"Very good Miss. Nightingale," Bruce said.

"Please, call me Milo," the dark haired woman asked.

"Alright then, Milo," Bruce Wayne said, trying Milo's name out in his mouth. "I have a few questions for you, before you can begin work for this establishment."

"Ask then," Milo said.

"Why won't you admit that you stole my money?" Bruce asked sharply.

"I knew this guy once," Milo began, causing confused expressions to appear on the faces of everyone who was listening. "Real nice guy, good kid too, his name was Tommy. Can't remember where I met him, but he and I, we go way back.

"So one day, Tommy was carrying out business as usual, and I'm sure you all know the business I'm talking about, just going about, not bothering anyone, well, except the people he had to 'see', if you know what I mean.

"But anyway, he was just going along, back from a meeting, when he gets pulled over by a police car. Tommy, the good kid that he is, pulls over, it's dark out, late, and the cop comes to his car with a flashlight.

"Tommy rolls down his window and says hello to the cop. The cop doesn't say hello back, just asks for license and registration. So Tommy gives the papers to the cop and the cop reads them. Tommy doesn't know what he's done wrong, he wasn't speeding and he didn't whack anybody. So he says to the cop, what's wrong officer?

"The cop doesn't answer, just keeps looking at the papers. Tommy gets real worried now, the car wasn't stolen but the cops, they weren't any good, bad guys, thugs, hired by the other side sometimes. The cop hands Tommy his papers back, Tommy puts them in the glove box and thinks he's getting off, that nothing is wrong.

"He turns to say good-night to the officer because he's real polite, but the guy pulls Tommy half-way out the window, telling Tommy to admit he killed the Italian mob boss. Tommy says he didn't do it, that he's innocent, but the cop just keeps pounding on him. The cop tells Tommy that it would be better if he just admitted what he had done, it would go better in court, so Tommy does what the officer says, admits to killing the mob boss, which is something he didn't do. So the cop pulls out his gun and shoots Tommy right then and there.

"Turns out it wasn't a real cop."

Milo took a deep breath after finishing her story.

"And the moral of the story is?" Bruce said impatiently.

"I don't want to get shot in the face," Milo said.

"Do you know who did steal my money?" Bruce Wayne asked, hoping he didn't accidentally set Milo off into another story.

"Now, this is where the story gets interesting," Milo grinned, propping her chin in her cupped hands, elbows resting on the metal table. "You see, Tommy didn't kill the Italian's boss, but he knew about it, knew who did it, it was his brother, Kevin, Kevin used to be good, but he got into drugs, can't control himself, you know? Anyway, the cop who isn't really a cop tells Tommy that if he squeals on the guy who did kill Louie, the Italian mob boss, then he'll let Tommy go.

"Tommy knows that the guy is lying, he wouldn't let Tommy go, he'd kill Tommy and Kevin and they'd both end up in oil drums in the bottom of the river, so Tommy doesn't tell, gets shot, but Kevin's still alive. He's getting the help he needs now, Kevin is."

"Moral please?" Bruce sighed.

"If you screw someone over, you're both going to end up dead," Milo said carefully.

"So you won't admit you did it, and you won't tell us who did?" Mr. Wayne asked.

"Bingo," Milo giggled. "You've got it!"

"You're associated with the mob?" Mr. Wayne asked.

"Now, that's a real big accusation right there," Milo said, grinning.

"It's true isn't is?" Bruce questioned.

"I knew a few guys, some girls too, that's not 'in'," Milo said.

"So you know the crime lords in this city?"

"No, I met Tommy in a different city, Phillie maybe, I can't remember," Milo replied.

"These mobs, they'd help you, the ones from wherever Tommy was?" Bruce asked.

"You're pretty worried I'll get away," Milo stated. "Don't worry, I'm just a computer geek, I can't do any of that other stuff."

"Answer my question," Bruce said.

"Yeah, they'd help me," Milo said, lacing her fingers together. "If Tommy was still there, or some of the other guys I knew."

"Tommy's dead," Bruce told Milo.

"I never said he died," Milo spat. "I said he got shot in the face."

"Okay," Bruce said. "Here's the deal, you don't need to tell me who took the money, because as far as I'm concerned, it never happened, you take the job, but when you get out, you work for me."

Milo stared at Bruce, he stared back, the corner of Milo's mouth twitched and she burst out laughing.

"You've got yourself a deal!" Milo exclaimed. "Now do you mind telling me exactly what I'll be doing?"

"There have been certain…disturbances of the peace here in Gotham City," Bruce said carefully.

"Like always," Milo scorned.

"And there are certain clues left by the perpetrator," Mr. Wayne continued. "The Gotham Police Department needs someone to decipher them, someone with experience in the criminal world and someone who is clever enough to see things that everyone else missed, someone like you."

"You flatter me," Milo fawned. "But I will need to see these clues to tell you if I am able to solve them. Otherwise, you might as well just put me back in that cell, because we all know that's where I'm going if I prove to be useless."

"I'll talk to Mr. Gordon, see if we can't get you an upgrade," Bruce said.

"Much appreciated," Milo thanked Bruce, "but how do you know about all this, you're not a police man and you're sure as hell not batman."

Bruce was stung.

"I know things," Bruce replied.

"And that's probably what gets you into trouble," Milo told Bruce sagely.

"Thanks for that little miss jail-bird," Bruce said, standing, "Mr. Gordon is going to come in and tell you about your assignment."

"So it's just Mr. Gordon that uses first name terms between the two of you huh? You're too embarrassed to admit it?" Milo said.

"Admit what?" Mr. Wayne growled.

"That you're gay!" Milo taunted, standing and dancing out of Bruce Wayne's angry hands.

"You little-," he snapped.

"Ah, ah, ah, be a good little boy now," Milo laughed as Jim Gordon entered the room.

"Thank you Mr. Wayne," Jim Gordon said hurriedly, directing Bruce to the door, fuming, Bruce left.

"Touchy isn't he?" Milo grinned.

"Mr. Wayne isn't one to be mocked," Jim said.

"Just call me a mockingbird then," Milo said, re-seating herself. "So, how about my assignment, so to speak."

"What do you need?" Mr. Gordon asked.

"To be let out of this cell and get my life back," Milo mused.

"I mean for the case," Jim snapped.

"Of course that's what you meant," Milo snickered, savoring her own private joke. "I need to see the evidence."

"Yes, of course," Mr. Gordon said. "But I need your word that you will not tamper with the devices or purposefully destroy them."

"Okay, a girl's only as good as her word," Milo agreed. "Show me this evidence."

Jim Gordon signaled through the reflective window for the evidence, a small, fidgety woman brought in a series of small yellow card paper envelopes and deposited them on the table between Milo and Mr. Gordon.

"Thank you," Mr. Gordon said, obviously dismissing the woman.

"Wait," Milo said as the woman started to walk out.

"Yes?" the woman asked timidly, turning to face Milo.

"Do I know you?" Milo asked, gun-metal grey eyes glinting like steel, her voice losing its lilting accent.

"I-I don't believe so," the woman stuttered.

"Oh, I must have been mistaken," Milo grinned, her accent just as firmly in place as her false smile.

The woman hurried out of the room.

"Why do you do that?" Mr. Gordon asked.

"What?" Milo wondered.

"Make people nervous like that," Jim replied.

"It's a habit I've never quite kicked," Milo shrugged.

"I expect you to stop immediately, I can't have a department full of frightened officers," Mr. Gordon explained. "Now please open the envelopes and tell me what you make of their contents."

Mr. Gordon leaned back into his chair as Milo reached for the first yellow envelope, her eyes not leaving Mr. Gordon's. The envelope wasn't heavy, it was light, and Milo could feel a small object within, she tipped it carefully into her cupped hand, her bindings gone for the moment, removed by Mr. Wayne.

She turned the little square over in her hand, practiced fingers running deftly across the ridges and depressions that snaked across the little green and gold object.

"Beautiful," Milo breathed.

"It's a micro-chip," Gordon filled in.

"I know damn well what it is," Milo snapped. "I've never seen anything like it; it's advanced, far more powerful than anything that we have now. For the amount of information that could be stored on here, it should be called a nano-chip."

"There's nothing on it," Gordon said. "We've scanned it, searched it and reproduced it, it's absolutely blank."

"No, it can't be," Milo said, still turning the nano-chip between her fingers. "There's something there, you can almost feel the information thrumming inside it, trying to escape. Maybe you just don't have the equipment you need to read it."

"Perhaps," Gordon agreed through his teeth, irked that someone else might have technology stronger than the GPD's.

"I need my own equipment," Milo said, "I might, just might, have something there that I could modify to read this chip."

"I can't do that," Gordon said.

"Why not?" Milo asked.

"Your equipment would be a security breach, you could have anything on it," Mr. Gordon explained.

"I guess you don't really want to find out who did this," Milo said. "If you did, you'd get me my things back."

Mr. Gordon gritted his teeth.

"Fine," he hissed. "I'll get your equipment, but you must give me your word that you will not use it for illegal purposes."

"I'm only as good as my word," Milo said. "I agree to your terms."

"Excellent," Mr. Gordon said. "I'll have your equipment transferred to your work room by tomorrow. That is all."

Seconds later, the same three officers who had escorted Milo from her cell returned to the questioning room, guns and tasers in hand, prepared to remove her and return her to her cell.

"Whoa there fellas," Milo grinned, "I'm going to come quietly, there's no need for those guns."

The three police officers stayed perfectly silent this time.

"One of these days, boys, one of you is going to crack," Milo said thoughtfully. "Just you wait."

A shudder ran down Mr. Gordon's spine.

Milo grinned through her cracked lips as she was led out.


	2. Chapter 2

Milo was awake all night in her new cell, Bruce Wayne hadn't lied to her, he had gotten her into a better cell, it wasn't bigger, but it was cleaner and had a chair, bolted down of course, besides the bed. Milo couldn't get her mind to turn off, she was getting her computers back, and these nano-chips, practically bursting with technology, getting chucked into prison might have been the most technological opportunity she had ever gotten. She pushed her long matted hair back from her face staring blankly at the ceiling, imagining the chances she would have, imagining all the shiny things that Bruce Wayne's money would buy her, once she found it of course.

The lights snapped on at precisely 7:00 am, Milo was up far before that, staring at her shaking hands in her lap, waiting.

"Good morning Mr. Gordon," Milo said as Jim Gordon slid her cell door open.

"I'm sure," Jim said, Milo looked worse than the night before, dark bruises dripped beneath her sunken eyes and her hands were shaking as she tried to steady them, "come with me, we've attained your supplies."

"I'd suppose nothing less," Milo said, standing, she did indeed feel more fragile, thinner, weaker. "Shall we?"

"Yes Miss Nightingale, we're going now," Gordon sighed.

"Really Jim, call me Milo, I insist," Milo Nightingale said, sounding more human than she had in weeks.

"No, Miss. Nightingale," Jim Gordon said. "Come along."

Milo shrugged and offered her hands to Mr. Gordon; he clipped the cold hand-cuffs around her wrists and led her out into the dim halls. Milo's soft shoes thudded dully, echoing down the grey-green walls, Mr. Gordon walked briskly, and Milo had to walk faster than usual to keep up. Half-way down the hall, there was a windowless door that Milo could only assume led to a windowless room, she gritted her teeth. Small spaces didn't make Milo nervous, only the ones that had no escape routes.

Mr. Gordon opened the door and pushed Milo in sharply, slamming the door after her, she stumbled slightly but caught herself, she blew her hair off her face with a sharp breath and made a face at the door. Her fingers scrabbled at the knob, hands still shaking, moments later, she heard the lock turn and she was shut in.

Milo turned, knees wobbly and nearly collapsed when she saw a figure sitting at the table that was the center-piece of the small room, she could feel her breaths coming shorter and shorter, catching in her chest.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Milo gasped at Bruce Wayne.

"I'm here to observe your progress," he grinned, "I made a special request."

"Are you some sort of pedophile?" Milo choked.

"How old are you?" Mr. Wayne asked.

"Nin-nineteen," Milo spat.

"Oh," Bruce said thoughtfully, as though calculating in his head. "No, I'm not a pedophile."

"Good to know," Milo wheezed, clutching at her chest with trembling hands.

"Are you an addict?" Bruce asked, standing momentarily.

"Uh-uh," Milo hiccupped, shaking her head. "Don't like small rooms with no doors."

"There's a door right there," Bruce said, indicating the grey door that blended in next to the grey walls.

"Not enough doors," Milo coughed, the room spinning before her and spots popping in front of her eyes.

"Hey!" Bruce shouted as Milo sank to her knees. "Are you alright?"

"Dizzy," Milo slurred.

"Hey! Help! We need a medic!" Bruce Wayne called, kneeling in his expensive pin-striped suit next to Milo in her orange jumpsuit.

The door slammed open, Mr. Gordon and a man in a light blue uniform burst in.

"What happened?" Mr. Gordon shouted.

"She came in and started breathing weird," Bruce snapped back. "Do something!"

The man in the light blue uniform knelt next to Milo.

"She needs some space!" the medic snapped. "Back off."

Mr. Gordon and Bruce Wayne obeyed immediately, stepping back until their backs were against the wall. The medic pulled out a portable oxygen mask and strapped it over Milo's mouth, she took a deep breath in and her body stopped shuddering, relaxing against the concrete floor.

"Did she say anything to you?" the medic asked Bruce.

"She said she didn't like little rooms with no doors," Bruce sighed, letting out a deep breath.

"Ah, a claustrophobic," the medic said.

"I don't think that's it," Mr. Gordon mused as Milo woke groggily. "I think she doesn't like the idea of having no where to run to."

"It could be," the medic agreed. "It also may have been a panic attack, she could be too stressed."

"She's a criminal," Mr. Gordon cried, outraged. "She chose this when she walked into those banks and cashed her fraudulent checks!"

"Never the less, she is in very fragile condition," the medic explained. "I suggest that you leave her for a few days and continue after that."

"We'll see," Bruce Wayne said coldly. "Thank you."

The medic nodded and left without another word.

Milo blinked slowly, one eye rolling back momentarily before snapping back frontward and crossing slightly, Bruce stifled a laugh, she looked so much like a child.

"Milo, why didn't you tell us you are claustrophobic?" Mr. Gordon said sternly.

"Not claustrophobic," Milo gasped.

"A history of panic attacks?" Mr. Gordon asked.

Milo shook her head.

"A history of drugs?" Bruce suggested.

"What are you implying?" Milo snapped indignantly.

"That you're an addict, suffering from withdrawal," Mr. Wayne replied.

"I'm not an addict!" Milo snapped, "I've never smoked or drank before either!"

"Alright," Mr. Gordon said, throwing a warning glance at Mr. Wayne. "We believe you."

"Good," Milo sniffed.

"Did you know that she's only nineteen?" Bruce hissed at Jim Gordon.

"She's twenty-one," Mr. Gordon whispered back. "It's very clear on her birth-certificate."

"She told me she was nineteen," Bruce snapped.

"She lied," Mr. Gordon responded. "She does that a lot."

"Hmmm," Mr. Wayne hummed. "Are we still going to have her work today?"

"Of course," Mr. Gordon replied, "we can't afford for these incidents to continue, she must work."

They both looked over at Milo, she was sitting in one of the three chairs, head in her hands, breathing deeply.

"I'll take it from here, Mr. Gordon," Bruce said.

"If you say so, Mr. Wayne," Jim Gordon responded. "Make sure she doesn't have a repeat performance."

Bruce nodded, smiling.

Mr. Gordon left, the door smashing shut behind him.

"Where the hell is he going?" Milo asked, her head snapping up at once, grey eyes narrowed in the pallid depths of her face.

"He has work to do," Bruce replied.

"And you don't," Milo muttered, scooting her chair further away from Bruce Wayne.

"What's wrong?" Bruce asked.

"Are you sure you're not a pedophile?" Milo murmured suspiciously.

"Yes," Bruce sighed, "now get started, as you can see, we've had all of your equipment brought in and we expect you to use it."

"Mmmhmmm," Milo hummed.

Bruce sat to one side of the room, the side with the door, watching Milo work, she whistled through her teeth, tunes weaving eerily throughout the echoic room, a tiny screwdriver in one hand, a handful of wires in the other, the rest of her work spread across the table. Every so often, she would tell Bruce to fetch her something while she fiddled with a tiny knob or an intricate bit of wiring, almost crossing her eyes beneath the lenses of her magnifying glasses. Her fingers moved carefully through the exposed insides of her slim laptop, Bruce had never seen anything like it.

"So, are you really nineteen or did you lie to me?" Bruce said, breaking the stifling silence that had descended over the room.

Milo looked up momentarily, looking at Bruce in a very irritated manner, before turning back to her work, without responding.

"Really, I want to know," Bruce repeated.

Milo clenched her hand around a little metal spring.

"Tell me," Bruce sang.

Milo let out a deep breath, putting her face even closer to the computer.

"I'm not going to stop," Bruce said.

Milo's shoulders tensed and her lips twitched, pressed together over her teeth.

"I want to know," Bruce continued.

"For the love of god, shut up!" Milo snarled.

"Answer me," Bruce replied, smirking at Milo, who was red in the face.

"I don't want to," Milo snapped through clenched teeth.

"Then I guess I'm not going to shut up," Bruce shrugged.

"Oh my god! Are you four?" Milo hissed. "I'm trying to stop a mad-man and you keep asking how old I am! Ridiculous."

Bruce turned pink and closed his mouth.

"Thank you," Milo sighed, turning back to the table-top. "I didn't lie to you by the way, I lied to Mr. Gordon, to get a longer sentence."

"Why would yo-," Bruce began.

"No comment," Milo said, the computer making tiny whirring sounds as she tapped on the keyboard, her fingers making short staccato sounds as they rapped the keys.

"I have to go for now," Bruce said abruptly, "Gordon will be down in two hours to escort you back to your cell."

"Okay," Milo said, still staring at her computer, its screen black.

Bruce left, and the door clicked shut, Milo waited a few moments before she went to the door, pulling on it as hard as she could, it did not relent. She sighed and sat back down at her computer, she took a deep breath, inserted the nano-chip and tapped the enter key. Instantly, the computer screen came to life, programs bloomed across the screen, some open and some password operated only.

Milo leaned back in her chair, very pleased with herself.

A little box popped up on the screen, an audio player, Milo scrambled to turn on the speakers, holding her pen ready over a pad of paper to record the message in case it destroyed itself. A high-pitched whine ripped out of the speakers, Milo covered her ears and turned the sound off, shivering at the sound. Seconds later, the audio player disappeared, Milo frantically searched the computer's drives, but she could no longer find the audio player.

Milo ran a hand through her tangled hair in frustration, wondering when the last time she had a shower was, and resigned herself to sorting monotonously through the rest of the files that were hidden or otherwise on the nano-chip she had constructed into her computer.

Several hours later, Mr. Gordon entered the room cautiously, finding Milo hunched over her computer, scribbling furiously on her note pad which was full of notes in black ink, tiny writing so she could fit more on each sheet of paper.

"Have you discovered anything?" Mr. Gordon said.

Milo nodded, Jim noticed that her face was paler than usual.

"What is it?" Jim Gordon asked.

"This," Milo said, turning the screen to face Jim Gordon, it was a blank document with one bolded letter on it.

"Yes, and?" Mr. Gordon wondered, slightly disappointed, he had been expecting more.

"Everything else is normal," Milo reported. "Everything but this letter and a riddle."

"What is this riddle?" Mr. Gordon asked.

"Less of a riddle, more of a rhyme or a poem," Milo said. "But I think it's meant as a riddle."

"If those are the only two things of consequence, then what is the note-pad filled for?" Jim Gordon questioned Milo.

"Trying to decipher the stupid riddle," Milo growled.

"Well, what is it?" Mr. Gordon asked.

"The keys are tapping

charts are mapping

children are clapping

while the knives are clacking." Milo recited.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Mr. Gordon snapped.

"There's more," Milo continued. "We're backwards walking,

never stopping

the words are blocking

from letters rocking

Catch me if you can."

"That doesn't mean anything," Mr. Gordon said. "There has to be something else."

"It does mean something, there's nothing else," Milo insisted.

"What does it mean then?" Mr. Gordon queried.

"I don't know yet," Milo frowned. "But I'd like to. Give me another hour."

"Fine, you have thirty minutes," Jim Gordon said. "I expect an answer."

"Well, I might not have one," Milo hissed as Mr. Gordon exited the room and Milo set to work.


	3. Chapter 3

**Okay, I made some stuff up in here so don't get mad if it doesn't actually exist, it just fits in the story. I hope you like it. R&R.**

**________________________________________________________________________**

Fifteen minutes later, Jim Gordon re-entered Milo's work room.

She was sitting with a grim expression on her face in front of the table, blocking it from view.

"Did you figure it out?" Jim Gordon asked.

Milo nodded.

"What did it mean?" Mr. Gordon questioned.

"It meant what it was," Milo said. "A riddle, or a puzzle. I fit all the letters together, they spell puzzle."

"But what were the puzzle pieces?" Jim asked wonderingly.

"That's the best part," Milo grinned. "The puzzle pieces weren't on the nano-chips. They _are_ the nano-chips."

"What?" Mr. Gordon wondered.

"Look," Milo said, moving away from the table, revealing all twenty nano-chips organized on the table to form a rectangle. "It's a card. A joker card."

"The Joker," Mr. Gordon breathed.

Milo nodded.

"No name, no past," Mr. Gordon sighed.

"Everyone has a past, everyone has a name," Milo shrugged. "It just depends on how well they hide it from themselves and how many people they kill to get rid of it."

"He doesn't have a past or a name," Mr. Gordon insisted. "No fingerprint records, no dental, nothing."

"Have you tried a DNA scan, cross-referenced with a brain pattern analysis?" Milo asked.

"What in gods name is that?" Mr. Gordon yelped.

"I take it that's a no," Milo grinned. "It's useless anyway, we don't have him here, but if you manage to catch him, look me up and I'll see what I can do with the Joker, pin a real name to him."

"That would be much appreciated," Mr. Gordon said. "But you'll be here anyway, until the Joker is captured, you stay in government custody."

"Now that wasn't part of our deal Mr. Gordon," Milo growled.

"Refresh my memory," Jim Gordon said.

"I find out who sends these threats, you let me go, I work for Mr. Wayne," Milo hissed through her teeth.

"No, I don't believe I agreed to that," Mr. Gordon grinned, "I don't have it in writing."

"Liar," Milo snarled. "I hate liars."

"It seems you and the Joker have something in common," Jim Gordon smiled. "Now I'm to escort you back to your cell, get comfy there, you'll be here for a while."

Milo scowled and allowed herself to be handcuffed for transportation.

She was deposited in her cell, there was a whirring sound and the overhead lights shut off. Milo stayed up, waiting until she was certain that the guards were asleep in their posts before she rummaged around under her mattress, looking for the tiny light she had rigged with bits from an old computer and the message she had printed off one of the nano-chips while Mr. Gordon had been waiting outside.

She turned the tiny LED light on and it flickered like a blue firefly in the dark as Milo held it over the bold black letters on the creamy white paper.

_To Whom It May Concern,_

_Congratulations, you've passed the first level of the game. You're stuck in a cage like a little bird, get out and find me to continue the game. Don't get caught Milo._

_J_

Milo's breath caught in her lungs and she felt like she had been doused in icy water, how did the Joker know her name and what game was he talking about.

Milo stuffed her light and the paper back under her mattress, falling into a fitful sleep on the cold white floor, hidden in the darkness.

The morning came, cold and grey, and the guards came to fetch Milo and escort her to her work room so she might work more. The typed in the code to her cell and entered, Milo was not sitting on her bed, waiting for them behind her great curtain of hair, nor standing staring at them.

Milo was crumpled on the floor, staring listlessly up at the ceiling, grey eyes empty, limbs shaking and blood seeping from her cracked lips.

One guard radioed for a medic, a second for Mr. Gordon and the third checked Milo's pulse, it was slow and her breathing was erratic.

Moments later, Mr. Gordon burst in, followed shortly by a medic, the same who had tended to Milo after her panic attack.

"Get back," the medic insisted.

Milo emitted a gurgling sound from her throat and choked up blood onto the orange front of her jump suit.

"What's wrong with her?" Mr. Gordon asked the blue suited medic.

"She's shut down her body, she's depressed and isn't handling it well," the medic said shortly, calling for more help.

"What do you mean?" Mr. Gordon snapped.

"She had manic depression," the medic hissed, carefully turning Milo on her side. "Bipolar disorder, the worst I've ever seen."

"Does that make her more dangerous?" Jim Gordon queried.

"At some times yes," the medic said. "But at other times she sinks too low to function, like now."

"Why does she shake all the time?" Mr. Gordon asked.

"She's an addict," the medic responded, inserting a needle into Milo's wrist.

"What kind of addict?" Mr. Gordon asked.

"She's addicted to crime, she was going through withdrawal, her bipolar disorder probably escalated from her withdrawal symptoms," the medic said, listening carefully to Milo's breathing.

"Addicted to crime," Mr. Gordon murmured to himself, "an interesting development."

"She's calming down," the medic reported, her breathing is returning to normal and her pulse is quickening. "She won't be functioning properly for a while, but she will live."

"Thank you," Mr. Gordon said.

The medic nodded curtly, collected his equipment and exited the cell, leaving Mr. Gordon alone with Milo.

"Milo," Mr. Gordon said gently.

"Mmmm," Milo hummed, eyes crossing.

"I need you to tell me something," Mr. Gordon said.

"What?" Milo slurred.

"Do you have manic depression?" Mr. Gordon asked, waiting anxiously for her reply.

"No," Milo replied firmly, words running together. "Would've said on my medical infor-may-shun sheet."

"Alright Milo," Mr. Gordon said, leaving. "I'll come back tomorrow."

"Mmm," Milo giggled, a spit bubble popping at the edge of her lips, the drugs taking effect.

Her cell door was shut, and Milo was left by herself.


	4. Chapter 4

**Here's where it gets more exciting, I realize the last three chapters were extraordinarily boring, but I needed them to get an idea of Milo's character. The real story starts here. Enjoy. Reviews are appreciated, so are messages. These chapters are getting steadily shorter; I'll make the next one longer.**

Mr. Gordon looked up from his desk; he had been up since 3:00 am, trying to figure out what their next move might be since Milo was incapacitated for the time being. He was worried, for all of Gotham and for his family. He remembered what it had been like last time the Joker was the reigning criminal.

Terrible.

He put his head down on his desk momentarily, just as he did; there was a rap on the door.

"Come in," he called, voice tired.

The door was pushed in, Bruce Wayne, the city's resident billionaire, stepped into Jim Gordon's messy office.

"Hello Jim," Mr. Wayne said. "Any developments with Milo's research?"

"She has Manic Depression," Mr. Gordon sighed.

"What?" Bruce exclaimed.

"Bipolar disorder, the medics say it's one of the most extreme cases they've seen in a very long time," Jim explained.

"How did they find out?" Mr. Wayne asked.

"She stopped functioning because she was so depressed," Jim said.

"May I visit her?" Bruce queried carefully.

"Fine," Jim conceded. "No guarantee you'll get a coherent response from her."

Bruce nodded, following Jim Gordon out of his cluttered office and down the drab halls to the maximum security cells. Their shoes clattered against the dull grey floors as they passed a guard station.

The two friends reached the cell numbered 1873 momentarily.

Mr. Gordon punched in the access code and the door slid open, Mr. Wayne followed Mr. Gordon in, seconds after they entered, Mr. Gordon radioed for a guard.

"Get a guard down here as fast as you can!" he shouted into his walkie-talkie.

"What?" Bruce asked anxiously.

"The damn girl's gone!" Mr. Gordon snapped, entering the cell.

A slim silver lap-top sat in the middle of the empty cell.

"That's her lap-top," Bruce said.

"Her work lap-top," Gordon filled in, opening the lap-top carefully as a guard hurried into the cell.

"What is it?" the fat uniformed woman asked.

"She's gone!" Mr. Gordon growled. "Search everywhere, put out alerts, contact the DA."

The woman scurried out of the cell, talking frantically into her radio.

The lap-top hummed gently.

Words appeared on the screen.

"Reckless the point of physical endangerment," Bruce read out. "Quoted from Mr. Johnson, psychologist."

The screen changed, more words typed themselves out.

"You just made this personal," Mr. Gordon read. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The screen changed again, words flashed slowly.

_Tick_

_Tick_

_Tick_

_Tick_

Mr. Wayne and Mr. Gordon looked concerned.

"She wouldn't," Mr. Wayne said nervously.

_Tick _

_Tick_

_Tick_

_Tick_

"She would," Mr. Gordon said.

_Boom!_

"Get down!" Mr. Gordon shouted, pushing Mr. Wayne out of the way.

They stayed down for a few seconds, there was no explosion. Mr. Gordon got up warily, the computer hissed and spat out a piece of card paper, it was printed in red ink.

"What is it?" Mr. Wayne asked.

"It says 'Gotcha'," Mr. Gordon said, flipping the card over. "The other side says _Kaboom!_"

The computer whirred.

"Now we get out of here," Mr. Wayne said, dashing for the door, Mr. Gordon close behind.

They slammed the door shut and flung themselves to the ground just moments before a deafening explosion heated their backs, flinging debris around the hall.

"That was interesting," Mr. Wayne said, scrambling upright.

"Milo's an interesting character," Mr. Gordon growled. "Still thinking about giving her a job?"

"I might have to reconsider," Bruce said, smiling wryly. "Although it would do well to check her into some sort of hospital."

"I don't think that would go too well for the other patients at Arkham," Mr. Gordon said smartly. "I have to go talk to some people, thank you for your visit, if we catch her, I'll look you up."

"That would be appreciated," Mr. Wayne said. "Good-bye."


	5. Chapter 5: The First Crime

**I hope you like this chapter, I worked hard to make it longer, and it is. It kind of skips around a bit, but you are all very clever people and can figure out where you are and who you are with. Message and Review please. Especially message if you have any ideas of where this story could go.**

Mr. Gordon stormed into his department, the detectives lounging aimlessly at their polished, messy, paper-strewn desks, the moment he stepped in, they sat up straight and hurried to make it look like they were doing something. Some put their heads down over sheets of important looking papers and others tapped frantically on their computers, three fell off their chairs because of their rush to find a way to occupy their time.

"Everybody stop!" Mr. Gordon shouted, the room fell still and silent like a first snowfall. "We've had an escape! She has proven herself incredibly dangerous, even upon her escape! I need any information you can find on her. The name is Milo Kaidy Nightingale!"

Instantaneously, the office erupted into a flurry of activity, this time with a real goal given and real results.

"Sir!" a young intern shouted, hand rose from where he sat at his desk.

"This is not elementary school!" Mr. Gordon snapped, rushing over to the mousy-haired boy's desk. "What is it?"

"Her files are gone!" the boy exclaimed, sweating bullets beneath his starched collar.

"What's your name?" Mr. Gordon asked.

"Kerr, Landon Kerr," the young man stuttered.

"What do you mean gone, Kerr?" Jim Gordon growled.

"Disappeared," Landon Kerr said. "Not on the back-up drives, no where."

"Damn computer terrorists to hell," Mr. Gordon hissed to himself, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. "I need anyone who remembers anything from Milo K. Nightingale's file to come here. NOW!"

Two women stood up, one was the woman who Milo recognized vaguely while the computer genius had still been in the GPD's custody. The women filed over, heels clacking on the polished cement floor, eyes wild and hair pulled back professionally.

"What do you know about her?" Mr. Gordon asked angrily, the rest of the office still trying desperately to find some file somewhere about Milo.

"I was assigned to analyze her when she first entered," the smaller woman said, the one Milo had recognized.

"She saw you in the interrogation room," Mr. Gordon said, "you brought in the nano-chips, she knew who you were, she thought she did anyway."

"Yes," the woman replied. "She is one of the most twisted people we've had in here that I've dealt with."

"How?" Mr. Gordon asked tersely, knowing they were short on time before Milo went and did something rash.

"She couldn't control the impulse to lie, everything she did, no matter how disgusting had an equally disturbing justification, each crime committed was planned and meticulously recorded," the woman said, fiddling with the lapel of her blazer. "She frightened me, her lack of morals and intelligence makes her a formidable opponent, she is the only prisoner we have ever held that I was legitimately afraid of. Do not underestimate her."

"I know all this, I know how she acts," Mr. Gordon said, dismissing the woman.

"Or you think you do," the woman muttered as she walked away.

Mr. Gordon turned to the second woman, a brunette with a lazy eye and pronounced jaw which worked a piece of fruit-flavored gum through her teeth thoroughly.

"What can you tell me?" Mr. Gordon asked. "Something I don't already know, please."

"She likes…maps," the woman said hesitantly. "Used to draw little maps all over her cell in a permanent marker we never found. She especially seemed to like the paper kind, the tourist maps that fold up really small. And, I don't know if this is important, but she had this very odd habit, she regressed slightly every so often from her state of normality, to what she is now, during each regression, she did everything three times."

"Superstitious?" Mr. Gordon suggested gruffly.

"Maybe," the woman said skeptically. "I was thinking more OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder."

"I know what OCD stands for, thank you," Mr. Gordon sighed. "Any distinguishing marks or features?"

"Only her strange eyes and a tattoo that runs up one of her legs, covering it fully to the knee, like a sleeve, but on the leg, it covers her foot too, it's some sort of archaic design, no specific pattern, but rather a mish-mash of many," the woman replied shortly.

The information hadn't been particularly enlightening, but Jim Gordon hoped that it might be the thing that would bring Milo back to them, maybe the thing that would put her away forever, no chance of parole, no chance to work with Mr. Wayne.

Mr. Gordon put a finger to his temple and shut his eyes momentarily.

"Did she have a psychiatrist?" Mr. Gordon asked the woman.

"Many," the woman said. "They all quit, calling her a lost cause."

"Why wasn't I informed?" Mr. Gordon hissed.

"I didn't consider her a threat at the time," the woman squeaked.

"How about now?" Mr. Gordon snapped. "Get all of her psychiatrists down here ASAP! And look for any reports of a strange looking woman, any large purchases anywhere, anything suspicious!"

Mr. Gordon shut himself in his office, nursing a cup of black coffee, waiting for a report.

Girls laughed giddily at 8:30 am, walking in uniform into their school, plaid skirts rustling, jumpers being adjusted, giggles hidden beneath splayed fingers with the nails painted black. A huge, grey gothic building loomed before them, St. Catherine's Girls Academy for the Mentally Gifted, a school for geniuses in plaid Catholic School uniforms.

A new girl walked among them, her previously matted hair combed into two sleek pig-tails that swung gently as she navigated through the halls, she was like all the other girls, clutching books to her chest and the strap of her lap-top bag strung over her shoulder, the only differentiation between her and the others was her momentary halt before a security camera in the main hall.

She looked about furtively, but none of the smiling girls seemed to have noticed, she grinned through cracked lips and continued, ducking through the halls. She stopped outside the door labeled Computer Lab B, entered and shut the door quietly, apologizing to the teacher for her tardiness. She seated herself at the back of the room and hooked her own lap-top up to the sleek desk-top that sat before her.

The room was filled with tapping and at exactly 9:30 am, the girl with the grey eyes and black pig-tails excused herself from the classroom to use the bathroom.

At exactly 9:36 am, the GPD was alerted of a terrorist threat and at exactly 9:37 am an explosion rocked through the girls' seminary, destroying the historical building.

At 9:40, a girl with blood on her lips and murder in her eyes staggered maniacally away from the wreckage, her plaid, uniform skirt tattered and singed around the hem.

Milo felt fresh air kiss her dirty cheeks as she stumbled out of the GPD prison, her hands were free and it was refreshingly cold in the night. She would just have to do something about the horribly orange jumpsuit that hung off her emaciated frame. Moments later, bright light and debris spilled from the window at the end of the hall that had held her captive for so long, a loud bang ensued and Milo crossed the street on unsteady feet, feeling stronger with every step, freedom on her tongue and chaos in her tangled hair.

She let out a gleeful giggle and disappeared into the darkness between two buildings that faced the GPD prison.

If one had been out late enough, they may have noticed a thin woman with snarled hair and an orange jumpsuit leap off the lid of a dumpster, slim fingers closing triumphantly around the cold metal bar of a fire escape, her weight and gravity dragging it down.

No one was out that late.

If the couple who lived in the apartment Milo entered were home, they would have seen the same thin woman don a pair of gloves stolen from the pocket of a GPD guard and search through the apartment, taking nothing but a pair of jeans, a tank-top, jacket and pair of sneakers, leaving nothing put the scent of discord and mayhem behind.

No one was home that night.

Because no one was there, there was no one to know that the woman who walked boldly into the nearest department store and purchase a full uniform for St. Catherine's Girls Academy for the Mentally Gifted was not a devoted parent, but a terrible criminal, and that the money she paid with was blood money, no one called the police.

Because no one called the police, no one stopped Milo in the middle of her plan.

Because Milo was never stopped, no one would know the terrible things that she had planned until they were right under their noses.

Milo linked her lap-top to the black desk-top that lay in front of her, the cord snaking between the two machines like an umbilical cord, sharing information instead of nutrition. Her fingers danced across the key board, working as quickly and efficiently as possible, all the other girls in the room were focused on their own projects. Milo felt rage and amusement spill up in her chest.

Moments later, her dirty work was done, she checked her watch, it read 9:30 am, right on schedule, Milo hated being late.

She stood, abandoning her shiny new lap-top in the computer lab; her black pig-tails brushed her shoulders as she hurried to the front of the class, excusing herself to use the washroom.

She passed the dark, carved door labeled with a sign that read 'women's restroom' and walked out of the twisting halls that were contained inside the school, out into the cool morning that hung in Gotham City like mist. Three sharp cracks echoed through the still air, Milo quickened her steps, hurrying across the lawn at an awkward gait, giggling maniacally, clutching the edge of her skirt in shaking fingers. Milo stopped just outside the spiraling cast iron fence that caged the hulking school.

A slim phone appeared in Milo's hands, taken skillfully from the pocket of a dallying girl who she had encountered in the hallowed halls of the ancient school. She dialed the numbers quickly, checking the time on the glowing numbers that shone out of the front of the phone. 9:34 am, she needed to do this quickly. She punched the number in violently on the key pad and raised the phone up to the side of her face, 9:35 am.

"Hello?" the smooth voice on the other end of the phone said.

"Hi," Milo said, deepening her voice.

"Do you have something to report?" the woman asked in professional voice ™.

"I do indeed," Milo snickered. "There's been a terrorist bomb threat on St. Catherine's, tell Mr. Gordon that Miss. Nightingale never said her word was any good."

"Miss-," the operator attempted to continue, but Milo hung up the phone violently, checking the time, 9:36 am, and hurling it towards the school before seating herself on a park bench and waiting, checking her watch impatiently every few seconds.

The minute hand on Milo's watch moved from 9:36 to 9:37, an almost infinitesimal change, but to Milo, it made all the difference, it meant she was on schedule.

She waited for a moment, and was rewarded, a huge explosion blew her off her feet, it destroyed every building inside the iron fence, including the out buildings and the P.E. building, Milo grinned in satisfaction, blood squeezing out of the un-healed cracks in her lips.

For three minutes, Milo lay on the sidewalk; watching the police pull up around the other side of the school and listening to the police officers shout orders to each other as they spilled from their cars like maggots from a carcass, infecting the scene.

Milo checked her watch, it read 9:40 am, she dragged herself up off the warm pavement and set of at a hobbling jog across the street and into the maze of buildings beyond.

A map floated above the wreckage, falling dismally in the failing breeze into the wreckage below.


	6. Chapter 6: GoodBye Allison

**The Joker is in this one as promised, just not a whole lot, but face it, there aren't a lot of opportunities for him and Milo to meet just yet, but they will, I swear, no guarantees of when though. Review and message please, I love both and I love my readers. I also made an effort to make this one longer as well. **

The static running through the radio was unbearable, it was impossible to discern what the announcer was saying.

"Fix it!" came a shout from a shadowy figure hunched on the one couch in the room.

A younger man who had been sitting in a stiff, wooden backed chair shot up from his seat and rushed over to the radio, turning the little knob on the ancient contraption until Gotham News Radio blared in perfect stereo into the room.

"Better," the figure sighed, relaxing his hunched shoulders back into the moth-eaten couch and shutting his dark-ringed eyes.

"…we do not know what the motives to commit this crime, but we do know the perpetrator, Milo Nightingale, is extremely dangerous. We advise people to take precautions when alone at night, to screen visitors and calls. As far as we are aware, the GPD has been unable to locate the criminal now being called the Mockingbird and the newest criminal in Gotham City, responsible for the bombing of St. Catherine's Girls Academy for the Mentally Gifted. Now, on to less…"

A gloved hand turned the radio off.

"Hm," the Joker hummed, his hunched shoulders shaking with laughter. "Milo's gotten into the game quickly, I think it's time we introduced a new player."

"What boss?" one of the Joker's minions asked.

"Shut up," the Joker hissed, and then, to himself, "a school, brilliant. Ha ha ha, oh, hee hee ha."

He slunk into the darkness, laughing to himself.

The officers working in the GPD crime department were not laughing.

Jim Gordon had taken his whole squad down to the crime scene, including a bomb squad, just in case. When they reached the site that had once held a proud school, there was nothing left but smoking craters filled with century old rock.

Mr. Gordon removed his glasses, cleaned them carefully, sighed and trouped over to where the head of the Gotham fire department was talking to a pair of singed fire-fighters.

"Mr. Gordon," the broad man said, dismissing his employees, "I'm glad you're here, we aren't allowed to question the survivors without a GPD employee."

"There are survivors?" Mr. Gordon asked, he hadn't been informed of this.

"Yes," Mr. Orilla, the fire chief, said carefully, "12 of them, 4 students, 6 teachers and 2 maintenance workers."

"I'd like to speak to them," Mr. Gordon said.

"This way," Sam Orilla said, directing Mr. Gordon through the mass of busy workers who were attempting to discover and subdue any hot spots that might be lurking within the remains of the destroyed school.

"That's them?" Mr. Gordon asked, indicating a huddled group of civilians within the mass of uniformed people bustling about.

"Yes," Mr. Orilla confirmed. "Don't take too long."

Mr. Gordon nodded tersely, not appreciating being told how to do his job. He was left alone with the group of scraped and bruised survivors, assessing the situation, he wondered what the best way to approach these people would be. He wondered for a moment before deciding on a professional, harsh approach, he was far to busy to worry about a few hurt feelings.

"I am Police Commissioner James Gordon," Mr. Gordon announced. "I have some questions to ask all of you, please cooperate and this will be over quickly and you can go home."

The group turned to face the bespectacled man, grim expressions on their faces, eyes almost dead and empty. Mr. Gordon gulped, he hadn't been expecting this, tears yes, but absolute silence and control, no, not at all.

"What questions do you have for us?" an older woman with grey hair pulled back into a tight bun from her sharp face asked, quite obviously the self appointed leader of the group.

"First of all, I need to know your names," Mr. Gordon asked, pulling out a pad of paper and a pen.

"I am Amelia Ford," the grey haired woman said. "I am the director of events, or I was before the school was blown up by that maniac!"

"Thank you," Mr. Gordon said in acknowledgement of the fiery woman. "Next please."

It took Mr. Gordon an hour to talk to each individual survivor and discover that they all had the same thing to tell him, that they didn't know anything about how Milo entered the school, the method she used to detonate her explosives or how she escaped unscathed. Mr. Gordon walked back to his own unit, frustrated beyond belief and hoping for some kind of development in the case on his end. He was rewarded.

"Mr. Gordon!" a voice called.

Mr. Gordon turned his head and looked straight at the same intern who had informed Jim that they had lost all records of Milo's existence the day before, the small, mousy-haired young man named Landon Kerr.

"Yes Kerr?" Mr. Gordon asked warily, Kerr seemed to be the harbinger of bad news and Mr. Gordon was not in the mood for any bad news.

"We've located the focal point of the blast," Landon Kerr reported. "From the looks of the blueprints, it seems that there were four main points of explosion, plus the ones in the outbuildings, so that's seven in total, the largest erupted from what used to be Computer Lab B."

Detective Kerr took a deep breath.

"Anything else?" Mr. Gordon asked, this simply told him that Milo, true to her nature, had chosen a computer based detonator.

Detective Kerr's face fell, he seemed to think the information was more important than it was.

"Um, we've found a fragment of a security tape," Landon Kerr said. "We're running it through a cleaning solution now to see if we can get any picture from it, the damage is phenomenal, it's a miracle it survived."

"I'd like to look at it," Mr. Gordon said, striding over to the white van that housed the GPD's electronic equipment.

Men and women wearing white latex gloves rushed about the van, four of them focused on the tape that Mr. Gordon was interested in. He walked over to them, their heads snapped up instantly and they looked nervously at each other, plucking at the edges of their gloves.

"Yes sir?" one asked, fidgeting.

"I'd like to view the tape if you've cleaned it," Mr. Gordon requested.

"We've done the best we can," a second technician said anxiously, sliding the repaired tape into a reader.

A screen popped up on a nearby computer screen with a tiny blip, Mr. Gordon sat down on the swiveling chair in front of the flashing screen. He hit the enter key, black and white lines crossed the screen for minutes, Mr. Gordon was just about to close the operation and declare the tape a lost cause when a small dot at the edge of the fuzzy screen exploded into a sharp view of a grey school hall.

"Record! Record!" the main technician shouted to another.

Students passed by the screen, not looking up, for a few moments before Jim Gordon's target entered into view. Milo had changed since she escaped, her hair was brushed neatly into two shiny pig-tails, lips not bleeding and her hands were steady as she held up a sheet of letter sized paper for a few seconds, she took the paper down and made a face at the camera before walking off.

The tape cut back into black and white fuzz.

"She's mocking us, she tampered with the tape and planted it for us to find," Jim Gordon breathed, running his hand through his hair, a familiar gesture of anxiety. "Zoom on the paper she was holding up to the camera please."

The tallest technician bent down and rewound the tape, pausing it when Milo held up the sheet of lined paper to the camera, with a few taps on the keyboard; it was magnified until it filled the screen.

"What's that supposed to mean?" the technician asked, apparently puzzled.

"It means she's not a loose cannon, it means that there has to be some pattern to her attacks, this one and future attacks," Mr. Gordon explained.

The sheet of paper Milo held up read _Reckless to the point of physical endangerment_.

"That was on the computer screen in her cell before it exploded," Mr. Gordon realized. "She's chosen her next target! She's going to kill Dr. Johnson! Get someone down there now!"

"Yes sir," Landon Kerr said, hurrying off to send someone to find Dr. Johnson.

Mr. Gordon turned back to the computer screen, staring irritably into the frozen eyes of Milo Nightingale, mid-crime.

"Sir?" a voice interrupted his thoughts, Landon Kerr, a voice Mr. Gordon had recently come to despise.

"What is it Kerr?" Mr. Gordon asked.

"We've found map fragments and blood not in the school grounds, not within blast radius," Landon Kerr said, a bit of fear tinting his voice.

"Any significance Kerr?" Mr. Gordon growled.

"She likes maps," Landon explained, "I just thought that maybe we might find some-."

"Go deal with the blood Kerr," Mr. Gordon said, waving Landon away, "You might have found something with this map."

Landon hurried off, beaming, Mr. Gordon sighed; glad to be rid of the irksome young man. The map fragments were brought to Mr. Gordon; bits of what looked to have been a foldable tourist's map at some point, Mr. Gordon remembered what he had been told by one of his employees, that Milo liked maps, especially the foldable kind. Otherwise, he would have told his technicians to toss it away as unimportant.

He pulled on a pair of white latex gloves himself and turned the fragments over carefully in his hands, there seemed to be nothing on them at first glance, but after a second inspection, Mr. Gordon discovered tiny red mark over a second school, another institution for the mentally gifted. He remembered what Milo's guard said about her, that at each regress, she would begin to do everything three times, could this be a mirror of her previous habits or merely a clever distraction.

A sheaf of papers was slid onto the portable desk he sat at, looking through them momentarily; Jim Gordon discovered that they were purchases of apartments and vehicles, listed by owner and price.

"What's this?" Mr. Gordon asked.

"Reports on purchases over fifteen thousand dollars throughout the Inner Gotham City area," a beaming woman said, Mr. Gordon couldn't remember her name, and honestly, didn't really want to.

"Why?" Mr. Gordon asked, he had enough useless information already, information that was getting him no where.

"I-I thought that since this criminal had escaped, the sensible thing to do would be find lodgings and transportation," the nameless woman stuttered out.

"This criminal does not do logical things, or at least things that seem logical to us, she does the things that seem logical in her unpredictable mind, these reports are useless, do you understand?" Mr. Gordon said harshly.

"Yes sir," the woman said, her voice quavered.

"Good, now go away," Mr. Gordon said, pushing his glasses up and rubbing his eyes. "I have a lot to think about right now."

The woman hurried off into the bustling crowd, media reporters now jockeying for the best position in front of the crime scene.

Mr. Gordon stood to address them, really just wishing them away.

________________________________________________________________________

Milo had disposed of her school-girl uniform, stuffing it into the furnaces that resided in the basement of a dingy apartment building and was currently wearing clothes stolen from the apartment she had robbed her first night free from prison. A dark pair of jeans, black t-shirt and black hoodie hid her in the shadows of a tall, sleek building.

She saw the light from the explosives at St. Catherine's popping before her eyes long after the actual event; she reveled in it, pure delicious evil. She straightened her shoulders before she walked into the building, the lights inside were dim in the back stairwells that were obviously reserved for the help and for shady dealers.

She stepped into the stairwell and hiked up thirteen flights of cement stairs, her footsteps echoing angrily throughout the stairs. She reached the thirteenth floor and opened the door, shut it, re-opened it, shut it and opened it one last time, stepping through into the main floor. The hotel hallway was just as dim as the stairwells but Milo had no difficulties finding the room she was looking for, the lights from the explosions at St. Catherine's still blurred in front of her eyes, lighting the whole hall up for her.

She rapped neatly three times on the pale door that was framed in chipped white moldings, stepped back, and waited.

Seconds later, the door opened and a pair of eyes framed behind heavy glasses looked out in a distinctly near-sighted, moleish way, finally focusing on Milo's face, framed by wild black hair and featuring huge sunken grey eyes. Milo pushed past the little mole-man, into the dirty apartment behind him, he let out an involuntary squeak and shut the door behind himself, ushering Milo past the messy kitchen and into the unkempt living-room.

"Milo," the little man squeaked, twitching slightly. "How've you been?"

"You know very well how I've been Mole," Milo said coldly.

"It's Jake now," Mole hissed.

"Whatever Mole," Milo snapped. "What did you do with my money?"

"Um-I," Mole stuttered.

Milo's fingers jerked over her jacket pocket and Mole's eyes flew to her hand, darting nervously.

"If you're going to lie, Mole, make it good," Milo hissed, her hand flitting closer to her jacket pocket.

"I spent it okay!" Mole shouted.

"Keep your voice down Mole," Milo snarled, advancing on the little man. "Or I'll make you shut up."

"I have a gambling problem!" the little man exclaimed, ignoring Milo's warning.

"Can you get it back?" Milo asked, her voice sharp as a knife.

"Uh, maybe," Mole said, looking around for some sort of defense against Milo.

"Wrong answer Mole," Milo murmured, fingers clasping around cold metal inside her pocket and bringing it out.

She steadied the gun level to Mole's face, and stared down the barrel.

The silencer did its dirty job, the gun made almost no sound. The bullet colliding with Mole's flabby face made more sound than the gun launching its bullet, the bullet pierced Mole's skull with a dull crack, his face crumpling inward, and blood pouring out of his face. The rug that covered the tile floor dulled the sound of his body collapsing to the floor and sopped up the blood that spilled from his wound. Milo nudged his body with the toe of her sneaker, confirming that he had indeed died.

A sound alerted Milo to the presence of another person, the woman whipped her head back around the door as soon as Milo turned, but there was no where for her to run and impossible for her to hide. Milo held her gun aloft, side-stepping carefully to the door of Mole's bedroom, she shouldered the door open quietly and flicked on the light, there was a sudden movement to Milo's left, just enough to cause her to leap out of the way. A blonde woman, wrapped in sheets was holding a broken off bit of mirror, a smashed closet mirror glimmered in the corner.

"Now, that's bad luck you know," Milo said softly.

"I-I called the police," the woman said, trying to sound brave, clutching the shard of mirror in her hand.

"It just keeps getting better and better," Milo grinned, walking closer to the woman.

Raising her gun, Milo pointed it blandly at the woman's face. Always the face.

"Puh-please," the woman begged, tossing her shard of mirror away, "I'm unarmed, take whatever you want, just please don't kill me."

"I'm going to kill the DA," Milo hissed, taking one step closer to the woman, the blonde taking one faltering step back.

"Why did you tell me that?" the woman sobbed.

"Now I have to kill you," Milo laughed. "I have a reason."

The woman dropped to her knees and sobbed.

"Tip your face up," Milo said.

The woman hung her head.

"I said up!" Milo snarled, pushing the woman's chin up with the toe of her sneaker, the same one bloodied from touching Mole, the woman stood, head tilted towards the ceiling.

She whimpered.

Milo sneered and pulled off her jacket, t-shirt, jeans and sneakers.

"What are you doing?" the woman asked.

"Shut-up," Milo growled, struggling out of her jeans.

The woman bit her lip, Milo stood before her in her bra and underwear, thin body covered with blood, and her lips were bleeding again, her blood mixing with Mole's.

"Put those on," Milo ordered, tossing all of her clothing at the woman, all but her undergarments and her watch that was ticking impatiently on her wrist, reminding her of the schedule she had to keep.

"I can't-," the woman began.

Milo waved her gun impatiently; the woman sniffed back tears and shed her own clothing, replacing it with Milo's, the blonde woman stood trembling before Milo.

"Now pull up the hood," Milo said.

The woman hesitated.

"Do it!" Milo barked.

The woman obeyed, face obliterated by shadows.

"What's your name?" Milo whispered, the sound hanging in the blood-scented air that saturated the apartment as she stepped closer to the woman.

"Allison," the blonde choked.

"Pretty name," Milo said, taking Allison's hand in her own, wrapping it around the gun beneath Milo's dirty, bloody fingers.

Milo directed Allison's hand gently, placing the gun on the underside of Allison's chin, digging the cold metal into her skin. Milo could smell the sweat and fear radiating off of Allison. Fraction by fraction, Milo pulled Allison's finger down on the trigger, little by little, getting closer to death. Allison's tears coursed down her face, down her upwards tilted chin and over her fingers, intertwined with Milo's stronger, controlling fingers.

"Good-bye Allison," Milo laughed, pulling Allison's fingers down on the trigger, a second gun-shot rang out, Milo's face was sprayed with thick, hot blood and Allison plummeted to the floor, fingers still clasped around the gun.

Milo pressed her fingers to Allison's neck, checking for the steady thrum of a pulse.

There wasn't one.

Milo walked calmly to the bathroom and promptly threw up into the sink, purging the contents of her stomach. She wiped her mouth of gently with a damp wash-cloth; it came away with a mixture of bile and blood. Milo grimaced and continued to wash her face and body, cleansing it of blood. Once Milo was clean, dried off with a second wash-cloth, she pulled on some of Allison's clothes that were hanging meticulously in the closet with the broken mirror. Milo went to the kitchen next, rooting around under the sink until she found a bottle full of CLR.

Milo walked back through the blood soaked living-room into the bathroom and dumped the bottle of CLR down the sink; she screwed the cap back on and returned the bottle to the kitchen. Milo surveyed the scene momentarily, Mole crumpled in the living room, Allison broken, hanging half-on and half-off the bed, gun in hand. Milo ran her hand through her wet hair, washed in the sink while she was washing herself off.

Milo walked to the front door, locked it, put the chain in place and stared at the space between the bottom of the door and the carpeted floor for a moment.

Sirens sounded mournfully from outside, Milo grinned, tip-toed across the apartment and flung open the single window. She turned back to the radio, setting it on quietly.

"Good-bye Mole," Milo whispered into the room as some dead singer from the fifties crooned out of the radio.

Milo pulled a small, folded piece of paper out of her bra and tossed it into the room, caught in the breeze from the open window Milo climbed out of, the little bit of paper floated through the room, settling into a pool of Mole's blood that was soaking into the cream colored rug.

Milo shut the window and crawled down the fire escape, going out just as the police officers were coming in.

One person saw, but that person wasn't about to tell. He was part of the game and Milo was just another player.

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**Okay, I know Mole is a stupid name to call someone, but hey, he dies right? And I couldn't think of a good name for him so I just called him what he looked like. I hope you liked it. Review and message me please! The 'New Player' the Joker mentioned earlier might show up later. **


	7. Chapter 7: I Move The Pawns

**Okay, it's taken me forever to update, but I really wanted some new reviews before I did update, but since they never came, I figured I might as well just update because I am crazy bored. I hope you all like it, review, review, review please! Oh, and I'm not writing another chapter until I get reviews!**

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_Gotham Times_

_Edition 2222_

_Article 13, Page 12_

_Late last evening, Wednesday the 25__th__ of March, the police were called to a Lower Gotham apartment building on the pretences of a break and enter report. When the police force arrived, they discovered that there had not been a break and enter, but rather two homicides. The deceased were found in the apartment with the radio on. No one else seemed to have entered the building that night, the female was found clutching a gun, the same gun that killed the other victim and the same gun that the Gotham City Police believe she used to kill herself after killing the other victim. The Gotham City Police have assured us that it was a homicide/suicide and that no other citizens are currently in danger._

_-Tanya West_

The Joker crumpled up the news paper and tossed it to the dingy floor of the warehouse, clutching the article he had carefully ripped from the pages of this morning's Gotham Times. He snatched a red permanent marker up off the broken down crate that served as a coffee table and uncapped it, poising the red tip over the newspaper like a scorpion's tail preparing to sting.

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Milo closed her eyes briefly, shutting out the world around her for a moment; she opened them again and looked at the dismal little apartment she had bought just moments ago from the remains of the money Mole had stashed in his own apartment, the one that would need a thorough cleaning after the mess Milo had left in it.

She opened her eyes again and rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand, her eyes hurt and she could feel an ache starting in the back of her head and thudding through her bones. She rifled through her pockets, pulling out a little plastic bag, she shook it around, hunting through the tiny pills inside for the one she was looking for. Milo emptied the bag into her hand and dumped the contents onto the table; the tablet she was searching for still didn't make an appearance so she selected a variety of tabs, an Advil several Tylenols and some brand-less pain killers.

She filled a glass up with dingy water from the dulled tap, shoved three of the pills in between her lips, tossed a mouthful of water in after them and threw her head back, swallowing the pills with no problem. She shook her head slightly and tossed a few more pills into her mouth, swallowing them in the same fashion as the last. She blinked groggily, pushing her hair back from her face, feeling her skin heat up, tingling slightly in her finger-tips. Tiny blue stars sparkled before her eyes, spinning and twinkling into ceaseless patterns, Milo frowned and clutched onto the sink, her legs failing her, her stared into the dingy metal through her widening eyes. She felt her head spin and empty until it was black.

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Milo opened her eyes, blinking away the blackness at the edges, she touched her cheek gingerly, it was cold and pressed against the grey tiles of the kitchen floor, Milo pushed herself up off the floor. She frowned, her head didn't hurt any more, but her face felt strange and her limbs were surprisingly unresponsive, she closed her eyes slowly and opened them again, pulling her lips to one side in a grimace. She felt an odd lurch in her stomach and leaned over the sink, vomiting what was left in her stomach into the cold metal bowl. Milo wiped her mouth off on a sheet of paper-towel and tossed it out the window into the alley that stretched out beneath the kitchen window.

She sat down heavily into the one chair that sat next to the wobbly wooden kitchen table and put her head in her hand. Milo sighed and swept her eyes around the kitchen, she looked at the tiled area where she had been laying and noticed something strange. A tiny piece of paper, torn from a newspaper fluttered gently in the breeze from the fan.

Milo got down on her knees and snatched the paper up in her white fingers, trembling; she unfolded the paper, newsprint staining her fingertips black with ink. On the front was an article, an article Milo had a personal connection with. Milo grinned, reading the tiny letters twice, satisfied that she hadn't been connected with Mole's death, she crunched the paper up and tossed it onto the table. A bit of red on the crumpled paper caught Milo's eye against the monochromatic paper. She caught the paper up in her ink-stained fingers again and un-crumpled it frantically on the scuffed surface of the wooden table.

She looked momentarily at the front of the bit of paper, the article about Mole's death, and flipped the paper over, red marker spelled out a message on the back of the paper. The words were messy and had bled into each other as though the red ink was actual blood, but for all Milo knew, it very well could have been.

_Milo,_

_You're a pawn in my little game. How would you like to meet the king?_

_J_

_224 Park Cr. _

Milo stared at the cryptic message. A game? If this was a game, Milo certainly wasn't a pawn, she fumed, she was the hand that moved the pawns. Milo inspected the message again, the J scrawled at the bottom was larger than the rest of the letters, Milo touched it with her already ink stained fingers and discovered that it was dry.

_J_, Milo thought, _who was it?_

Milo scowled at the thought of being a pawn, anger rising in her throat and threatening to spill over. To calm her anger, Milo pulled a bottle out of the fridge; Milo inspected the label carefully, it was vodka. Milo unscrewed the bottle and took a swig of the clear liquid; she swallowed and absently pulled at the edges of the label, ripping it off in one swift motion, leaving the glass vodka bottle bare. Milo smoothed the label out with her inky fingers and plucked it off the table, taking it from the kitchen to the living room.

She rubbed her nose, smudging ink onto her skin, before choosing a blue thumb tack and pinning the vodka bottle label onto the wall covering the edge of her map of Gotham City Subway Lines. She stepped back and surveyed her work, maps, labels, stamps and brochures smothered one beige wall of the living room, scraps of papers littered the carpet and scissors were splayed out, glinting silver, on the floor.

Milo turned the newspaper clipping in her hand and pinned it next to the vodka bottle label with a red thumb tack, grinning, her lips cracked again, blood seeping from the cracked skin. She ran her thumb over the smooth paper, moving from her newest clipping to the clipping about the school bombing, Milo smiled wider. She had lost her best lap-top, but it had been worth it for sure. Milo moved from looking at her newspaper clippings to the map of Gotham's inner city, three red circles interrupted the cleanliness of the paper; Milo studied the circles for a moment, an involuntary spasm shaking her body.

She left the living room, grinning, and opened her lap-top in the room that served both as a bedroom and a computer room, cables tangled on the floor and spare pieces littered the tables, glittering in the dim light that dripped from the flickering overhead light. Milo's black lap-top hummed to life, the cord feeding electricity from the outlet into Milo's newest device.

Hours later, Milo closed her lap-top and switched on the television she rigged on the one empty table. She turned the volume down until it was a dull murmur in the background of her whirring thoughts, she could vaguely hear a documentary announcer explain something about sea-snakes as her eyes flickered shut.

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For Milo, the morning didn't come early enough, when her alarm buzzed, she had already been up for several hours, she leaned over calmly and hit the stop button on the i-pod touch that hummed angrily next to her. Milo could feel the blood buzzing through her veins like a swarm of angry bees trying to burst through her papery skin, she shook out her hair and stood. Milo brushed her hair carefully, hot-ironing it until it was pin-straight and pinning it up into a professional chignon. She calmly slipped into a crisp, white blouse, layering a dark-blue blazer over it, tucking the white shirttails into her blue pencil skirt. She slid her feet into a pair of black pumps and straightened up, admiring herself in a tarnished full-length mirror. She smoothed out her skirt, slicked on dark red lip-gloss and balanced a pair of black, horn-rimmed glasses on her thin nose.

Satisfied with her appearance, Milo lifted her bag from the kitchen table and slung it over her shoulder; she locked the door behind her as she exited the apartment building and tucked the key down the front of her blouse.

On the street, people hurried to get to work, checking their watches and clutching brief-cases in their tense hands, not a single person looked more than once at Milo, and when they did observe her, it was only to chart the best course around her stationary body.

She stood still for only moments, before checking her own watch that angrily reminded her of her strict deadline that she would not, under any circumstances, break. Milo strode towards the buzzing road, taxis and unknown black cars cruised by in the congested vein of the city. Milo held out her hand and whistled piercingly, hailing a cab, immediately, three taxis halted on the street. Milo chose the one closest to her; the driver was a bulky Mexican-looking man who was missing several yellowing teeth, displayed to their fullest advantage as he grinned at Milo while she entered the back-seat of the cab.

"Where to Miss?" the man asked in a heavily accented voice.

"Fourth and seventh please," Milo said sweetly, smiling gently so as not to break the skin of her dry lips.

"Yes ma'am," the cab driver said, pulling onto the road.

Milo checked her watch, 7:46 am.

"Faster if you can," Milo requested, snapping the cover on her watch shut with a loud snap.

"Yes ma'am," the driver obliged, Milo felt the car lurch forwards and continue at a quicker pace towards Milo's destination.

The cab pulled to a screeching halt at the corner of 4th and 7th, the man collected his fare from Milo's white hands, grinning, without a single clue that he had just been in the taxi with one of the most dangerous criminals in Gotham City. Milo thanked the man and slammed the yellow and black checkered door behind her and striding towards the tall building at her current location. Thunder crashed across the city and the dark clouds threatened rain as Milo pushed open the sleek glass doors to the enormous buildings.

Milo walked to the desk that dominated most of the lobby of the skyscraper.

A woman with bright red hair and a brighter smile greeted Milo civilly.

"Welcome to Mr. Jameson's Foundation for Intelligent Young Men," the woman chirped. "My name is Linda, how may I help you?"

"I'm here for an interview with Mrs. Ford," Milo said sweetly, blinking innocently behind her thick glasses.

Linda turned to her computer screen and tapped the key-board for a few moments, Milo held in a laugh at the woman's poor technology and poorer technology skills. The woman turned back to face Milo, her smile still plastered in place.

"I'm sorry; it doesn't appear that Mrs. Ford has an appointment at this time," Linda sang.

Milo checked her watch with a false frown.

"But Mrs. Ford said she would secure an appointment time for me at 8:00," Milo replied. "I'm early."

The secretary calculated Milo's lie carefully, deciding to believe her.

"It's wonderful that you care so much about this to come so early," Linda said in a sympathetic voice. "But I can't admit you into this institution without a scheduled appointment."

"I understand," Milo said with a sad little smile. "Thank you for checking anyway, but could you direct me to a bathroom please?"

"Certainly," Linda said, "the visitor's restroom is just over there."

Linda pointed to the end of the lobby where three doors sank into the pristine walls, each marked with a sign indicating which bathroom was for which gender and which the handicapped restroom was.

"I noticed those on my way in," Milo said sheepishly. "But the woman's room is out of order."

"Oh, I'm sorry but I can't allow you into the building," Linda said.

"I _really _need the restroom though," Milo continued, a slight tone of pleading coloring her voice. "Feminine problems."

Milo felt a false flush rise to her cheeks.

"Oh," Linda said, Milo watched her eyes un-focus, calculating the risks and rewards to allowing Milo into the main part of the building.

Moments later, Linda looked up.

"Sure, I can let you into the first floor bathroom, I'll just need to make you a visitor's pass and get your license number." Linda explained, pulling out several forms and a pen before setting them on the marble counter in front of Milo.

"Thank you so much," Milo gushed gratefully, picking up the pen and filling out the indicated fields in the forms she was given.

Milo handed Linda the forms and Linda entered them into her inferior computer, seconds later, a pass was printed out and clipped onto a lanyard that Milo slung around her neck, the name listed on the plastic-cased sheet was Nina Janson.

"Did you fill out the license number form?" Linda asked gently.

"I actually don't have a vehicle at the moment," Milo said, frowning. "And I don't have a driver's license."

Lie, Milo counted in her head, keeping a running tally of all the lies she was telling.

"Alright," Linda said. "You just go ahead in there and be out as soon as you can, alright?"

Milo nodded, taking the pass-card from helpful Linda's hand, and hurrying to the entrance to the main floor of the building. Milo let herself in and immediately removed her visitor's pass and tucked it into the pocket of her blazer.

Milo walked easily through the building as though she belonged there, smiling graciously at the people who said hello to her. She entered the elevator and pushed the little button on the wall that read 7, the button lit up and the elevator pinged. It whirred as it lifted Milo up; Milo's face tightened and she clenched her fingers around her purse, and crossed herself three times.

The elevator pinged again and the number seven lit up above the door, indicating that she had reached her final destination. She stepped out of the neatly carpeted elevator carriage and into the equally neat hallway, she passed by classrooms, full of young students who were perhaps fifteen years old and eager to learn. Milo stepped up to the room marked 177 and knocked abruptly. A strict looking woman exited, leaving a room full of curious and slightly frightened students craning their necks to get a look at their teacher's visitor.

"Hello," Mrs. Ford said stiffly, "I don't believe I have any appointments today."

"I know Mrs. Ford," Milo replied in an equally professional voice. "I'm here from the GPD; I have some more questions to ask you. Is there somewhere we could go to talk for a while?"

"Yes," Mrs. Ford said, "I have an office in the back of my classroom, we can talk there."

"That would do fine," Milo said. "Shall we."

Mrs. Ford nodded, re-opened the door to her classroom and led Milo through the long classroom that was filled with a few students, no more than fifteen young boys sat, staring up at Milo, in their seats.

Mrs. Ford opened a door at the back of the room and ushered Milo unwittingly into her office, as soon as the door closed behind the two women chatter broke out in the classroom. Milo smiled, reminded of her past; she quickly stifled her thoughts in a cover of meaning and death.

"Yes Ms…?" Mrs. Ford trailed off.

"Janson," Milo said effortlessly, flashing a false GPD badge at the woman, counting another lie to her tally.

"What are your questions?" Mrs. Ford asked.

"I must confirm you are indeed Mrs. Ford before I can begin questioning," Milo said sharply, "do you have identification I can see?"

"Yes, certainly," Mrs. Ford said, removing a drivers license from her purse and showing Milo who inspected it carefully.

"Thank you," Milo said. "That will do. And you are Mrs. Ford, formerly of St. Catherine's Girls Academy for the Mentally Gifted? The one that survived the terrorist bombing? Is that correct?"

"That is," Mrs. Ford confirmed.

"Let's have a drink," Milo said, removing a bottle of whisky sans label and two glasses from her purse.

Mrs. Ford smiled graciously and accepted the whisky, taking a miniscule sip.

"I would like to ask about your day before the bombing," Milo said, faking a sip of whisky, another lie. "Just explain to me what happened before the explosion, where you were and so on. Feel free to take a drink Mrs. Ford."

Mrs. Ford took a deeper sip, growing more and more courageous, Milo tuned Mrs. Ford out for the duration of her explanation, knowing that she didn't really need to listen; Mrs. Ford wouldn't be an issue for too much longer.

"And did you see the perpetrator?" Milo asked as her last question.

"I believe I did," Mrs. Ford said, lowering her voice down to just above a whisper.

"Could you describe her for me?" Milo asked.

"I never said it was a woman," Mrs. Ford said suspiciously, narrowing her eyes.

"I was informed by Detective Gordon that the perpetrator was a woman," Milo said, covering her tracks seamlessly. "Could you identify her in a line up?"

"I believe I could," Mrs. Ford said.

"Thank you for your time," Milo said, standing.

"Is that it?" Mrs. Ford slurred.

"Yes, thank you," Milo grinned.

Mrs. Ford's eyes rolled back in her head and she let out a tiny hiccup, slumping back in her chair. Milo worked quickly, uncorking a tiny bottle she pulled from her pocket and emptying the contents into Mrs. Ford's mouth, tipping the older woman's chin up, ensuring she swallowed the liquid. Mrs. Ford let out a tiny squeak and was still. Milo tucked a tiny map into Mrs. Ford's front pocket, tucked the whisky into Mrs. Ford's drawer and shut it gently; Milo mussed her hair gently before getting down on her knees next to Mrs. Ford and letting out a scream.

The door slammed open, a tall boy with blonde hair hurried in first.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"I don't know!" Milo exclaimed. "She just collapsed!"

Milo looked up at the handsome boy with desperation and tears in her eyes. The boy knelt next to Milo and checked Mrs. Ford's pulse; he frowned and called another boy in, whispering about CPR to him.

"I'm going to call 911," Milo said in a choked voice.

"Okay," the boy said kindly. "Are you okay?"

"Uh-huh," Milo sniffed. "I just need some air."

"Go into the hall for a while," the boy said gently, touching Milo on the shoulder, Milo flinched away, nodding.

Milo rushed out into the hall, calling 911 while also rushing into the elevator; she pressed the button for the first floor. Milo crossed herself three times again, when she hit the first floor, she hopped out of the elevator cheerfully, all traces of tears gone, she checked her watch that ticked threateningly on her wrist, she was right on schedule.

Milo exited out a service entrance, watching as the EMT's rushed into the building, no one would know it was her. Milo hailed a cab for the second time that day, driving to her second 'appointment' that day. Milo's cab pulled up at a bank, the largest in Gotham City, and entered, straightening her navy skirt again. She entered the bank and checked her watch; she was still on time, 10:04 am.

A thin, brunette woman greeted Milo at the door.

"Janice Coors?" the brunette asked through thin lips.

"Yes," Milo said, lie.

"You're right on time," the woman said, impressed.

"To work at a bank, you have to be punctual," Milo said, breaking the handshake she was in with the woman.

"Very good Ms. Coors," the brunette said, "I'll take you to meet with Mr. Danes now."

"Thank you," Milo said.

The brunette woman led Milo across the shiny floor to a glass encased office where a tall, bald, dark-skinned man sat at a polished desk. The brunette woman opened the single, glass door.

"Ms. Coors is here to see you Mr. Danes," the woman said in a bland, professional voice.

"Thank you Sharon," Mr. Danes said as the brunette turned to exit the room.

Milo crossed the room and seated herself in the chair opposite to Mr. Danes who put his glasses on and blinked at Milo. He reached over and offered his hand to Milo, dark, sleek skin flexing around his muscles.

"Nice to meet you," Milo offered.

"Yes, it is indeed," Mr. Danes said, "we are in great need of a clerk, one of ours has just quit due to the increase in crime in the city and our profits are down. We would love to hire you."

"Do you need my resume?" Milo asked.

"I just need to ask you a few questions," Mr. Danes said.

"Certainly," Milo complied.

"Do you have any previous experience working at a bank?" Mr. Danes questioned.

"I do," Milo said. "I worked for a few months at a bank out of town."

"Lovely," Mr. Danes said. "I expect you here next Monday at eight."

"Thank you Mr. Danes," Milo said, shaking hands again before seeing herself out of his office.

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Milo hurried home, asking the cab to drive by 4th and 7th on their way back to the apartment building one block away from Milo's actual apartment. It was 11:24 and people were still filing in and out of the school, Milo recognized Mr. Gordon's car pulled up at the scene, she stifled a laugh that bubbled up in her throat. The taxi pulled away from the crime scene and closer to Milo's new _home_.

The cab stopped, Milo paid her fare and exited the taxi, she smiled and pretended to make her way into the apartment building they had stopped at, once the taxi was out of sight, Milo left and popped open an umbrella, hiking the one block to her apartment.

She let herself in with the key that still resided down the front of her blouse, hidden and out of sight. The first thing Milo noticed upon entering the little living room was the flashing light coming from her bedroom. She entered it carefully and looked around; her lap-top was open, not how she had left it, the screen flashed. Milo sat on her little bed and looked at the screen, a message was open on it, sent from an untraceable address.

_You haven't met me, your little watch it ticking Milo. Find me soon, tick, tock, tick, tock, time is running out._

_J_

Milo did a little digging into the internet memory and discovered a return address, she grinned and sent a message back.

_J,_

_I'm not a pawn; I'm the hand that moves the pawn. You meet _me_. 871 Middleton. _

_Milo_

Milo set the mouse over the _send_ button and let her hand linger over the enter button on the keyboard. She thought about the risk she was taking, her hand trembled momentarily before she tapped the _enter _key, the e-mail message was sent, lost in cyberspace.

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**Joker in the next one I think. Oh, and by the way, all of you who are complaining about Milo calling Bruce Wayne a pedophile, Milo didn't call him that because he was, she's nineteen, she called him that because she wanted to bother him. Anyway, message and review or I won't make another chapter!**


	8. Chapter 8: Nice Suit

**Okay, I got some reviews, not as many as I would like, so if you read this, please review! Even if you don't like it, review and tell me what you think I should do to fix it! Anyway, this is the moment you've all been waiting for, Chapter Eight. Enjoy, Review and Message.**

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"Again," Mr. Gordon snarled, looking at the crime scene.

Mrs. Ford's body was sprawled out on the floor, face pale and lips a light shade of blue, her students created a half-circle around their dead teacher, eyes wide and mouths shut. Mr. Gordon stood, lips drawn across his teeth, staring down at the crime scene, evidence spread out on the linoleum, a map, a bottle of whiskey missing its label and a visitor's pass made out to Nina Janson.

"Do you need us to describe her?" a blonde haired boy asked Mr. Gordon.

"I already know who she is," Mr. Gordon hissed. "Milo Nightingale."

"Oh my god," a smaller boy breathed.

"How do you know?" the blonde asked.

"She left us clues," Mr. Gordon explained, "she wanted us to know it was her."

"Why did she kill Mrs. Ford?" the blonde asked.

"Curious aren't we?" Mr. Gordon snapped, feeling his patience running thin.

"I just want to know if we're in any trouble," the blonde stated, gesturing to his classmates who seemed to view him as their leader.

"What's your name?" Mr. Gordon asked the boy.

"Nigel," the boy replied, a hint of British biting into his words.

"Nigel," Mr. Gordon started out, pushing his glasses up his nose trying to rein in his anger and irritation, "we aren't sure why Mrs. Ford was killed, it may be that she is cleaning up after her last incident but it might also be that she is simply drawing us out into another elaborate plan. We don't know Nigel, but we are taking every precaution to protect you and your friends."

Nigel made a humming sound in his throat.

"She didn't seem like a bad person," Nigel said thoughtfully.

"This woman, this criminal, is exceptionally crafty and clever," Mr. Gordon explained. "She didn't seem bad because she didn't want to."

Nigel frowned.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Mr. Gordon replied. "That's all I need from you."

With that, Mr. Gordon exited the office to get some air and talk to the coroner and police officers congregated at the crime scene. The yellow tape that criss-crossed the scene burned Jim Gordon's eyes, he blinked a couple times, pulled out his notebook and pen to talk to his people.

"What do you have for me?" Mr. Gordon asked.

"The map," a short man that Mr. Gordon recognized as Landon Kerr. "It has another marking on it, her next target maybe?"

"Was this school on her last map?" Mr. Gordon asked.

"No it wasn't sir, but-," Landon began.

"Then we have no reason to believe that Milo would fulfill her hint on the next location," Mr. Gordon informed Landon Kerr.

"But it could be-," Landon stared.

"No," Mr. Gordon finished. "Anything else?"

"The whiskey bottle," Landon said.

"What about it? Was it poisoned?" Mr. Gordon asked.

"No, nothing in the room was poisoned," Landon Kerr explained. "We believe that Milo took the evidence with her as some sort of keep-sake, a memento if you will. That's why the label was missing from the whiskey bottle, she wants a souvenir."

"What about the visitors pass?" Mr. Gordon asked.

"It's how she entered the building unidentified," Landon explained. "Linda from the front desk let her in, she claims that Milo needed to use the restroom, we have her in our custody as an accessory to a homicide."

Landon closed his mouth firmly with a proud expression.

"She's innocent," Mr. Gordon said distractedly. "Let her go, she's done nothing wrong."

"But she-," Landon stuttered.

"Let her go," Mr. Gordon sighed. "She didn't know what she was doing."

"Yes sir," Landon Kerr frowned, walking away, strides short, sharp and angry.

Mr. Gordon threw his notebook angrily on the ground; this investigation was getting them nowhere, Milo was still out there and she was still killing people. His phone rang, he snapped it open and put it to his ear.

"Gordon," he said by way of greeting.

"Hello, uh, Mr. Gordon," a sweet, menacing voice came through the speaker.

"Who is this?" Mr. Gordon demanded.

"That isn't, ah, your concern," the voice told him, Mr. Gordon waved someone over, he mouthed 'trace that signal', "what is your concern is that I, ah, know where Milo Nightingale will be tomorrow."

"Oh, and where is that?" Mr. Gordon asked.

"871 Middleton," the voice said.

"Again please?" Mr. Gordon asked, trying desperately to keep the snitch on the line.

The line went dead.

Mr. Gordon snapped his phone shut and looked to the tech geeks.

"Did you get it?" Mr. Gordon asked.

"No, the phone was untraceable," a broad man informed Mr. Gordon.

Mr. Gordon sighed and handed his phone over to them.

"Sort through this," Mr. Gordon instructed gruffly.

The tech geek accepted the phone irritably and hurried off to his station, clutching onto the phone for dear life.

"Are we accepting this tip as credible?" Landon asked.

"Where the hell did you come from?" Mr. Gordon snapped.

"The tip Mr. Gordon," Landon reminded his boss.

"Yes," Mr. Gordon told Landon.

"It could be a set up though!" Landon protested.

"We have no other leads," Mr. Gordon explained.

"It could be dangerous," Landon yelped.

"It's this or nothing," Mr. Gordon said, "get a team together for tomorrow Mr. Kerr."

Landon Kerr pursed his lips but did not protest.

________________________________________________________________________

Milo returned to her home early with groceries she had bought under another false name and a stolen credit card. She fixed herself dinner, carefully prepared spaghetti that was precisely on time, ate, placed her dishes in the sink and moved swiftly to her living-room collage. In her pale hands, Milo held a crumpled whisky bottle label and a tiny vial. She pinned the whiskey label next to her vodka label and hung the vial by its neck with a bit of string from a marked point on her aerial map of Gotham City.

She looked back to her collage before exiting her apartment, dressed in her business clothes, her business tools tucked away, hidden in her clothing. Milo made sure to empty her pockets of everything that could lead this back to her. Satisfied that she was incrimination free, Milo set off through the back alleys that snaked through the huge city.

Drug dealers and hookers skulked in the shadows, careful to keep out of the pools of light the street lamps cast during their transactions. Milo ignored them studiously, these people were the scum of Gotham city and she, a business woman, couldn't be seen associating with them. Milo ducked her head further down behind her collar and walked quicker, her steps brisker.

People melted away into the shadows as Milo entered the alley that was claimed by the night and no one else, there were no criminals there, fear ran thick through the air, something avoided at all costs. Milo crossed herself three times before stepping over the threshold and into the alley at 871 Middleton. Milo waited in the dark for minutes, watching them tick by on her pocket watch, she would stick to the schedule whether her 3:18 am appointment showed or not.

Something moved in the shadows, Milo stepped slightly towards it, her hands hovering nearer to her pocket with ever motion it made. She took one more step and chanced a look at her engraved silver pocket-watch.

Mistake.

The shadow moved forward at a very alarming pace and suddenly Milo's face was pressed against the cold brick wall that sprouted up from the cement alley.

"Nice to meet you Mr. Batman," Milo hissed.

"Shut-up," Batman growled, pressing Milo's face harder onto the brick.

"But why?" Milo continued. "You must be the other player Mr. J mentioned; you are the Knight aren't you? We're both in this game together."

"The only game you'll be playing is chess with the warden," Batman rasped.

"Okay Mr. Bat," Milo giggled. "You've got me, I'll go quietly."

"I know you will," Batman growled.

"Oh you do Mr. Bat," Milo smiled. "You do."

Lights flooded the alley way and people dressed in black with the letters SWAT in bold white letters across their back. Mr. Gordon stepped forwards holding a pair of hand-cuffs out, walking towards Batman and Milo.

"Wait," Batman instructed, he delved his black gloved hands into Milo's pockets, searching for weapons.

"Mr. Batman," Milo laughed girlishly, "I didn't know you felt that way about me."

Milo earned a smack on the back of the head for her cheek.

"Ouch," she mumbled.

"Damn straight that's ouch," Mr. Gordon said as Batman emptied Milo's pockets onto the pavement. "You just go caught."

"That's what you think," Milo winked.

"Shut-up," Mr. Gordon said, hand-cuffing her none too gently.

"Yes sir," Milo saluted, grinning so harshly that her lips began to bleed again.

"God that's disgusting," Mr. Gordon muttered.

"Now that ain't very nice," Milo cooed.

"He told you to shut up!" Batman snarled.

"Yes sir, yes, okay," Milo said, lifting her bound hands to protect her face and head.

Her giggles penetrated the silent air as Milo was taken into an armored vehicle and a pair of eyes watched from above in the shadows, unnoticed.

________________________________________________________________________

"Goddamn it!" the Joker howled, lashing out at one of his hired henchmen.

"What is it boss?" Ace flinched away from his boss' anger.

"She's just, ah, made the game a little more, uh, interesting," the Joker growled.

"What can we do boss?" Ace asked again, careful to stay out of reach of the Joker.

"We, ah, have to pay a little, uh, visit to Mr. Gordon and his department," the Joker laughed angrily.

"Yes sir," Ace said. "When?"

"How about, uh, now?" the Joker asked, a devilish smile on his already grinning face.

"How many people do you need with you?" Ace asked.

"Uh, me, uh, myself, and, uh, I," the Joker said, pulling his large purple overcoat over his hunched shoulders.

"Good luck boss," Ace said as the Joker stepped out the door.

"I don't, uh, need luck," the Joker snickered as he shut the door behind him.

________________________________________________________________________

Milo was thrown roughly into a barred cell, alone; she tapped the metal bars three times with her knuckles.

Mr. Gordon and his crew were whispering outside Milo's cell, hands on their hips, holsters slung low with loaded weapons.

"It's impolite to whisper," Milo sang, "especially when you have _company_."

"Shut your mouth girl," Landon Kerr snapped.

"You shouldn't speak to your guest like that either," Milo taunted. "Or are you just in this for Mr. Gordon. A love triangle? You, Mr. Gordon and Bruce Wayne. Or is Batman involved in this too? How strange."

Landon scrabbled for his keys to the cell in his suit pocket, muttering fiercely under his breath. He pulled the keys from his pocket and was almost at the cell door with the keys in his hand before Mr. Gordon halted him with an impatient tap of his foot.

"Don't," Mr. Gordon warned, "you don't want her for an enemy."

"Aw, I'm not that bad am I?" Milo sang.

"So help me god, if you leave me here with her," Landon Kerr threatened.

"You'll what Mr. Kerr?" Mr. Gordon growled. "There is nothing you can do without putting your position here in jeopardy. Think about that while you sit here."

"What kind of position are we talking here?" Milo grinned lewdly, one eye rolling back in its socket.

"And you," Mr. Gordon threatened. "Shut-up or else."

"Ooooh," Milo laughed maniacally.

"I'm out," Mr. Gordon said, "watch what you say Kerr."

"Yes sir," Landon Kerr said through clenched teeth.

"Goood-bye Mr. Gordon," Milo crooned. "Say hi to Mr. Batty for meeee!"

Mr. Gordon rubbed the bridge of his nose before he exited the room, taking all of the men but Mr. Kerr and another man. Mr. Kerr watched the door shut and waited silently for a few minutes, listening for footsteps that would indicate Mr. Gordon's return. Once Landon Kerr was satisfied that Mr. Gordon was gone and wasn't coming back, he turned to Milo's prison cell with a satisfied smile on his young face.

"You are dismissed," Landon told his fellow guard.

The guard took the order instantly, winking lasciviously at Landon Kerr before he left, closing the heavy door with a resounding bang. Landon Kerr stood up slowly, pushing his jacket back from his hips where it covered his pistols. Landon smiled, removing his jacket completely.

"Now missy," he cooed, "you're going to do exactly what I say, aren't you?"

"Yessah, Mr. Kerr," Milo chanted in a sickening baby-voice.

"Good girl," Landon replied gently, his voice sweet and sugary, but dangerous. "Now I need you to stand up, walk to the back of the cell and stay there."

"Yessah," Milo said, bobbing her head childishly as she moved to the back of the cell as far away from Landon Kerr as she could get.

"That's great girly," Landon said, "now I'm going to open the door and you are not going to do anything stupid, okay?"

Milo's head lolled sideways but she gave no reply.

"I need you to tell me yes or no sugar," Landon instructed.

"Yes Mistah Landon," Milo complied, tilting her head the other way.

"Great sugar," Landon grinned, inserting the keys in the lock of Milo's cell, she stood stock still at the back of the cell, not making any sudden moves as Landon entered her cell, closing the door half-way behind himself.

"Whatcha doin' Mr. Kerr?" Milo asked in her sloppy baby-voice.

"Nothing baby," Mr. Kerr said, "just do what I say and nothing will happen."

"Really Mr. Kerr?" Milo demanded.

"Yeah, sure, hun," Mr. Kerr said, moving closer to Milo, his hand next to his gun-holster. "Now, I need you to take off that nice sweater you're wearing please."

"Sure Mistah Kerr," Milo grinned, pulling off her dark-blue sweater, revealing a black tank-top beneath.

"That's real nice," Landon hummed, grinning wildly.

"Thanks a bunch Mistah Kerr," Milo baby-talked.

"No, thank you baby-cakes," Landon Kerr grinned. "I need you to turn around and put your hands on the wall please."

"Yessah," Milo obeyed, turning away from Mr. Kerr to face the dull grey wall, putting her hands up on it.

Landon licked his lips crudely.

"You okay Mistah Kerr?" Milo asked, turning slightly.

"Don't turn around girly," Landon warned her.

"Sorry Mistah Kay," Milo apologized, seemingly unaware of what was going on.

"It's okay darlin'," Mr. Kerr soothed, "just do what I say baby."

"Sure Mistah Kay," Milo said.

Mr. Kerr grinned, took his hands away from the holsters resting at his hips, he moved slowly towards Milo, grin still plastered on his face. He stopped a few inches away from Milo's back.

"Hey honey," he whispered, his breath hot on Milo's neck. "You don't tell anybody about this and you don't get hurt."

"Okay Mistah," Milo said, still not turning as Landon ran his hands across her back and around to her stomach.

Landon brushed aside Milo's hair from the back of her neck with one hand; Landon bent down a little and pressed his lips to Milo's neck, breathing heavily. Landon felt himself spin wildly out of control, he took his hands from Milo's back and shoved them up her tank-top, pulling it off, Milo didn't turn. Mr. Kerr grinned, finally one that didn't fight, he pressed himself roughly against Milo, grinding into her back but planning so much more.

________________________________________________________________________

The Joker hiked his way up the stairs of the GPD building, all the way to the 17th floor, Mr. Gordon's floor, Milo's floor. The plaque on the door had the numbers 224 engraved on it, Milo's lucky number, 8, the Joker stopped at the heavy door and pressed his ear to the wood. He listened carefully, from inside, the Joker could hear sounds that made anger boil up in his chest more violently than normal. The one crime he couldn't stand: rape.

The Joker tried the door, it was locked, the Joker put his purple clad shoulder to the door and shoved, the door swung into Mr. Gordon's office, the Joker's face was red under his pale make-up. His eyes swept the room, looking for the vile Mr. Kerr and Milo. Two figures lay on Mr. Kerr's desk, the smaller pinned under the larger, the Joker clenched his fist around his knife's handle, removing it from his pocket. He stepped up to the two figures on the desk, the edges of his purpled coat swishing on the floor, the Joker grabbed the shirtless Mr. Kerr by the back of his neck and picked him up.

Mr. Kerr wasn't quite what the Joker had expected, he wasn't the picture of sinful lust that the Joker had seen his father look like around his mother so many times.

For one thing, Mr. Kerr's eyes were closed, not open taking in the deliciousness of his evil act and for a second thing, the Joker didn't think that Landon Kerr could open his eyes if he wanted to. A pair of yellow 2B pencils pinned Mr. Kerr's eyelids shut, there was a third pencil protruding from the man's neck. He was stone, cold dead. The Joker tossed him to the floor and looked at the second figure on the desk.

The second figure wasn't who the Joker had been expecting either.

It was a second officer bearing the same wounds as the vile Mr. Kerr did, two pencils through his eyes and a third in his neck. The Joker tossed the second useless body onto the floor, dusting his gloves off on his purple coat. He looked around, the room seemed to be empty, and the cells were as well, Milo's sweater and tank-top lay on the concrete in the cell. The Joker giggled, his shoulders shaking gently, Milo was good, very good.

"Nice suit," a demented voice hissed from the darkest part of the room.

Milo stepped into the light, jeans hanging low on her hips and her bare stomach white in the fluorescent lighting, a dark spatter of moles on her chest, just above the blackness of her bra. She grinned, a drop of crimson liquid rolling off her lips, down her chin and across her pale chest, soaking into the black fabric of her bra.

"Milo, ah, nice to see you, uh, all of you," the Joker laughed.

"You wanted a meeting," Milo said, "and now we're in my office, so what did you want?"

"You, uh, planned this?" the Joker asked.

"I plan everything I do," Milo grinned, pulling her pocket watch out of her bra, "and we're right on schedule."

Milo scooped her tank-top up from the cement floor and pulled it back over her head.

"I, uh, think I liked it better off, doll," the Joker grinned.

"Screw off," Milo rolled her eyes, the left one slower than the right.

"Don't, ah, mess with me dollface," the Joker threatened.

"What make's you think I'm not already a mess?" Milo asked slyly, stepping a little closer to the Joker.

"I think you're one, uh, organized mess," the Joker commented, taking a step back from Milo.

"Whatcha gonna do about it?" Milo hissed, leaning in towards the Joker, her breath blowing a loose strand of hair back from his painted face.

"Uh, this," the Joker said, grabbing Milo's wrists with one hand and his knife with the other.

"What happened to your brave intentions of saving me, Mr. Joker?" Milo asked.

"You, uh, don't need saving anymore, ah, so I might as well, uh, have some fun with you sugar," the Joker crooned, pushing Milo's wrists together.

"Oh, that's too bad," Milo said. "Because I have no intention of letting you call the shots."

"That's, uh, too darn bad dollface," the Joker informed Milo, "Because I'm, uh, the one with the upper, ah, hand right now."

"You're mistaken," Milo said. "Whatever you want from me won't be gained by force."

"Oh, uh, I don't know," the Joker smiled. "I, uh, think everyone has their own, uh, breaking point. I would, ah, love to see you break dollface."

With that, the Joker slapped a bit of duct-tape over Milo's bleeding lips, and dragged her out of Mr. Gordon's office.

"Got a calling card dollface?" Joker asked.

Milo pulled a tiny map out of her jeans pocket and speared it on the pencil that was piercing Mr. Kerr's neck.

"You're, ah, good," the Joker muttered. "Almost, uh, too good."

Milo made a muffled groaning sound beneath the tape that covered her mouth; the Joker clamped his gloved hand over Milo's wrist and dragged her out of the office building.

________________________________________________________________________

**The Joker is finally here! Yay! I hope you liked it, I think it's fairly interesting, I kind of left it open, we don't know why the Joker wants Milo or where he's taking her, but we do know that the **_**other player**_** that the Joker referred to earlier is Batman. Batman's finally here too! Milo made a mockery of Mr. Gordon. Okay, I will not make another chapter until I get 5 new reviews, messages are also appreciated. Review for the next chapter! Love you all! Oh, and by the way, this isn't as long as I wanted it to be, but maybe the next one will be longer. Message me if you want longer chapters or if you have any ideas. Hopefully the Joker is Joker enough, I keep reading over what I make him say and I'm not sure if it's really what the Joker would say in the situation he is in. Ideas, messages and reviews are really appreciated. **


	9. Chapter 9:You're Just As Mad As I Am

**Okay, why don't you people review? It drives me nuts, thanks a bunch to those who did review though, I love you. I want reviews! I need them! I don't care if they're reviews saying you don't like my story, I still want reviews! REVIEW OR DIE! Okay, I got a little too excited there, please, please review if you want another chapter.**

**___________________________________________________________________________**

Milo stared carefully at the Joker's face with some difficulty, every now and then, one of her eyes would roll spasmodically in its socket before flitting forwards to scrutinize the paint-faced villain who sat across from her in the back of an empty white van.

The Joker looked up boredly before turning his head again.

Milo twitched, blood seeping from beneath the duct-tape on her lips.

The Joker stared with more focus at the side of the van.

Both of Milo's eyes rolled back in their sockets.

The Joker put his hands in his overcoat pockets.

Milo's head lolled heavily to one side.

The Joker blinked three times, digging his hands further into his pockets.

Milo ripped the duct tape from her lips impassively, inadvertently smearing blood across her pale cheeks.

She grinned.

"What are you on…ah…because whatever it, ah, is, I, uh, want some," the Joker said, tongue flicking out to moisten his lip.

Milo continued to grin without responding.

The van hit a sudden bump, jolted and halted.

"Home sweet home," Milo shrieked, tapping the floor of the van three times with her feet.

The Joker rolled his eyes and slid the van door open, he remembered someone saying something about Milo and manic depression, he was beginning to believe that she was just the opposite of sane, just as happy-house, straight-jacket-worthy and men-in-white-coats insane as he was. He stepped out into the dark and turned, plastering the bloody duct-tape back on Milo's lips before dragging her out of the van and into the ink-black night. Goosebumps rose along Milo's arm and her body began to shake in a desperate and futile attempt to keep itself warm. She squinted in the dark, wishing she had put her sweater back on, but remembering how she had left it in a dark crumple on the floor of her cell after she killed Landon Kerr and his accomplice.

Milo allowed herself to be dragged through the darkness, the purple leather of the Joker's gloves firm around her left wrist, chafing slightly, Milo didn't mind, it wasn't so bad, she'd had worse. This was merely interesting.

In the impenetrable darkness ahead, there was a pin-prick of light, tiny, the size of a sharp pencil. Milo giggled impulsively, remembering the bulge of Landon's eyes and the gurgling sound that emitted from his throat as the perfectly pointed, yellow 2B pencil punctured his skin and his trachea.

The Joker tugged her wrists harder, jerking Milo out of her remembrances and through a rough door in the dirty brick wall that faced the two criminals, illuminated beneath a single flickering lamp that was slung above the door. The Joker turned his eerie painted face to Milo for a miniscule second, the overhead light slinging shadows across his pitted, scarred face. A strange, foreign feeling welled up in Milo's stomach, something she had never experienced before. With all of her might, Milo pushed the feeling away, locking it up in the shreds that lay where her heart should have, vowing to never feel that again. Sufficiently sobered by the strange emotion, Milo didn't feel quite as amused as before, but rather cold and stony, a marble statue of a destroying angel, a fallen angel.

The Joker put a gloved finger to his lips, indicating for Milo to be silent, grinned wildly and slammed the metal door in, it smashed wildly into the wall on the other side, filling the tall room with echoes; Milo covered her ears and howled through the duct-tape over her lips. She felt as though she had been ripped in half, as though her ear drums had exploded into her brain, her eyes had popped and every bone in her terrible body shattered.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Her limbs tingled, her nose stung, she couldn't move her appendages no matter how her brain begged them to. Her eyelids were heavy and her lips leaden. There was a small prick on the inside of her elbow and she felt adrenaline shoot through her veins, suddenly her limbs were awake, itching to move, demanding use. Milo shot upright from her slumped sitting position, her skull abruptly throbbed, vision fading into black, ears pounding, temples throbbing, her vision faded until it was completely black and back out until her darting eyes could focus.

She was slumped on the floor of the room she had entered only moments earlier with the Joker, the sound of the metal door colliding with the exposed brick wall rang in her ears. A circle of curious onlookers surrounded her, the Joker's henchmen for sure. This was not the impression she wanted to give them, that she was weak, they surely thought her a lunatic, but not strong, weak. She pulled back her lips, already knowing that they were bleeding and snarled viciously at the blurry faces around her. Her mind felt like it was on acid, everything was bright, overly bright and lurid, faces blurred, lips moved long after their words had spilled out incoherently.

"Fuck this," Milo spat into their faces, the bloody duct-tape crumpled on the dingy floor, digging in her jeans pocket.

"Ah, ah, ah dollface," a familiar voice pushed through her almost drug-addicted thoughts. "None of that."

"Fuck you, fuck this!" Milo hissed, flattening herself against the wall.

"Ah, hun, you don't look, uh, so good, are you, uh, having a bad, uh, trip hun?" The Joker asked.

"I don't know, Mistah Jay," Milo said in a sickening voice, "why don't you tell me?"

"No, uh, you're not," the Joker told Milo.

"Wrong answer," Milo snapped, leaning forwards and vomiting all over the shoes of the men who crouched before her.

"Bitch!" one man growled, reaching for the pistol at his side.

The Joker's knife was quicker.

"Not so, uh, fast there," the Joker grinned, holding the shining silver blade to the man's throat.

All attention that had momentarily been focused on Milo was diverted to the Joker and his victim.

Milo took this moment as an opportunity, the brightness of the colors was starting to fade from her vision and her head didn't pound as terribly as before. In a moment, waiting for her tensed muscles to spring, Milo was sprinting away from the little circle and slamming her way up the first exit she saw, a set of stairs. Her body rocked from side to side wildly as she waited for her mind to sober itself, she vaguely noted that her shoulder smashed into the wall as she turned a corner wildly, running from nothing.

There was a short hall at the top of the rickety stairs and three doors. Ironic, Milo thought, like a game show.

"And what's behind door number one," she breathed to herself, hand already turning the dingy brass knob.

The door gave no protest as Milo shoved it roughly open, listening for the sound of footsteps coming from the stairs she had just ran up. Her vision was back to normal, the Joker's lair wasn't as bright as it had been, her ears weren't pounding so heavily and breathing came easily to her now.

The door opened and it took Milo a moment to adjust to the darkness before she saw a shape hurtling from the far corner towards her, Milo threw herself out of the way, one hand already in her jeans pocket as her body hit the wall. The shape turned for a second attack, Milo had her hand back out of her jeans pocket and the shape fell to the floor abruptly, twitching with three bullets lodged in its spine.

Milo hunted for a light switch; the walls were closing in on her, getting ready to crush her. There wasn't one; she hurtled back into the hall, abandoning the body behind her, colors brightening before her wild eyes. She stormed down the hall.

"Door number, ah, two," she said, words catching in her throat until she coughed them out into the still air, footsteps echoed up the stairs behind her.

The door opened, the room beyond was empty, but Milo backed out swiftly, the colors swirling before her eyes and hurting her brain, dust stinging her nose and air sticking in her dry throat. Milo felt her back slam into the wall behind her, it hurt less than it should have.

"Thre-ee," Milo howled in a high pitched staccato, shoving the door in.

The flashing colors and pounding in her ears disappeared instantly.

The room was white and dirty, lines were scratched on the wall and blood smeared the chipping paint. Milo took a deep breath through her flared nostrils. A deep, dark, coppery smell entered her head and she swept her eyes slowly around the room. She locked them into the corner. A shaking heap of what Milo supposed had once been a woman was shuddering in the corner, hands clamped over her ears and lips open around a wail of fear.

Milo took a step closer, aware that the door behind her had been opened again and another person had entered the room. The woman on the floor scooted away, further into the corner, hands still clutched over her ears. Milo took the three remaining steps to seat herself next to the woman.

"Shh," Milo hummed, voice breaking. "It's all over now. Shhhh."

The woman didn't hush.

Milo wrapped her arms around the woman's terrified body and hummed a tune under her breath.

The woman relaxed into Milo's arms.

Milo pressed her gun to the woman's neck and fired her three remaining shots, dropped the gun in distaste and draped the woman's arm over the blank, empty eyes that gaped out of her dead face.

"Now, ah, what did you go and do, uh, that for, dollface?" the Joker said from the doorway.

"Put it out of its misery," Milo informed him in a detached voice, shaking.

"But, uh, that was my, ah, last toy," the Joker pouted.

"That's, _ah_, too goddamn bad," Milo hissed, mocking the Joker.

The Joker stepped forwards, enraged, hands already in his pockets, Milo was quick too, in a flash, she had scrambled her way over the dead body that lay sprawled on the floor, thrown the window open and slid half-way out, far enough so that if she were to let go she would fall for certain.

The Joker's hand was clutching a butterfly knife as he advanced.

"Let's, uh, put a smile on that face," he grimaced.

"You can't do that," Milo informed the menacing figure.

"Oh, and, uh, why not?" the Joker asked.

"You _need_ me," Milo laughed hysterically. "You can deny it, but you _need _me."

The Joker scowled and put his knife back in his pocket.

"You, uh, are going to, ah, die," he whispered angrily.

Milo smiled.

"I'm going to tell you a story," she almost sang, "since I _know_ you're so fond of them. Once upon a time, a little girl lived in a little house with her perfect fucking family. They went to church, her father went to work and her mother stayed home.

"One day, the little girl came home from school. Her parents were in the kitchen, smiling like the fools they were. They told the little girl, who truthfully wasn't so little any longer, that the three of them were going on a trip."

Milo paused and scooted further out on the window ledge before continuing her story.

"The perfect little family got in their car and drove to their vacation. One evening, the parents went for a walk, leaving the girl at the hotel. Time passed and the parents didn't return, the little girl went looking for them. She turned down the first street she came to and discovered their bloody, broken bodies.

"Can you guess what I did then?" Milo leered at the Joker.

He shuffled slightly to the left.

"I calmly called the police," Milo filled in unexpectedly. "And I calmly booked a flight home. I was calm on that flight and I calmly returned to my home. Then, very calmly, I methodically killed every person on my block. And, very calmly, I explained to the police, that it hadn't been me, and then, still calmly, I continued to kill."

Milo clamped her lips shut.

"You're just as, uh, mad as I, ah, am," the Joker mused as his henchmen filed into the room.

Milo rolled one of her gun-metal grey eyes back in her head and let go of the window frame, pitching backwards out into empty space.

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**Okay, that was weird, but I was bored. Okay, I need reviews! If you read this story, review it, I don't care if they're good or bad, I just need feedback so I can make this story better for all of you. If you have any questions or ideas, feel free to send me a message, which are also appreciated. Message and Review please!**


	10. Chapter 10: Escape and A Deal

**I got three reviews the first day I posted the last chapter, let's keep that up because I need reviews to help me write. I get spastic writer's block if I don't get reviews so if you want another chapter, review, review, review. And here we go, on with the story!**

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Milo licked her lips and looked up at the window she had just fallen out of, a square of light on the side of a perpetually dark building.

"Ow," she moaned to herself as she tried to move, it felt like every bone in her body was made of needles and stabbing her flesh.

She flexed her fingers and touched them to her face; they came back sticky with blood and tears.

Tears? Milo thought, since when did _she_ cry?

She laughed even harder about this. She laughed until she was crying again. Footsteps crashed out into the dark alley where Milo lay laughing in the dark surrounded by a pool of blood.

"Jeez," she heard a low voice mutter. "She's laughing."

She felt the lunacy bubble burst inside her chest and her laughter increased in volume until she was almost screaming, both with pain and laughter. Milo felt warm hands on her cool, bloody skin, she hollered with amusement as pain shot through her veins. The mutterings around her turned into one monotone drone, boring and empty as Milo shrieked out her amusement. A flash of purple caught her deranged eyes, Milo focused her eyes on the Joker, his knife back in his pocket and his gloves covered in coppery smelling, red liquid.

Milo leered at him.

"That, uh, was a very, ah, stupid thing to do, uh, Milo," the Joker grinned. "You, uh, like feeling broken, ah, don't you?"

Milo couldn't respond and so she laughed maniacally.

"Lunatic," one man muttered under his breath, the same man who the Joker had almost killed earlier.

"Slow learner," Milo choked out, kicking the man square in the face with her sneaker clad foot.

There was a sickening crunch as his nose broke under the force of Milo's deranged anger, blood spurting out of his face, he knew better than to respond this time.

Milo could feel her body demanding sleep, but her laughter denied it, she saw the painted face of the Joker looming over her, grinning his famous Glasgow smile before she couldn't see at all. She cursed violently, her blood must have clotted in the veins around her eyes causing temporary blindness, this would certainly screw up her plans.

"Shut, ah, up," the Joker snarled, clamping a hand over Milo's lips, halting her tirade mid-profanity.

The Joker's henchmen chuckled and Milo aimed a blind kick at one as she was carried up what she assumed to be stairs.

"Fuck!" the man swore.

"One more time with fee-ling!" Milo crowed, snorting with laughter as she felt the ground she was being carried up level out.

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Milo's vision repaired itself remarkably fast, she was seeing in a matter of minutes after being sat down none-too-gently on a couch by the man who she had kicked in the groin. Milo giggled, in a slow drawn-out sound.

Milo looked around at her surroundings, it was the room she had killed the Joker's 'toy' in, exactly the same room she had just fallen out of, the same down to the body curled in the corner next to the window.

"You, ah, are a lunatic," the Joker leered.

"I try," Milo shrugged, crossing herself three times.

"I'm, uh, so glad," the Joker snapped.

Milo let out a high-pitched laugh, cut short by the Joker cuffing her harshly on the back of the head.

Milo instinctively shot out one leg; tangling it in the Joker's and making him stumble. His shoulders hunched more beneath his purple jacket denoting his anger and he turned from Milo as she made rude faces at his wide back.

"I'm, uh, gonna make you, uh, a deal, uh, Milo," the Joker said, still not turning to face the lolling lunatic behind him. "You're, uh, part of my game, ah, right?"

Milo nodded soundlessly, scrunching up her nose at the Joker's casual use of the term 'his game'.

"I'm going to, uh, hand over, this, ah, game to you, dollface," the Joker continued. "If, uh, you, my little pawn, can catch the, uh, knight and, ah, bring him to me. Gotham needs a little more, ah, chaos."

Milo snarled at the Joker calling her a pawn.

"Fine," she hissed, "but I have one…condition, Mista Jay!"

The Joker hunched his shoulders further, neck almost disappearing.

"I get to stay here, with yooooou!" Milo sang.

The Joker flinched, he didn't know how he could stand her being here _all _the time.

"But I want my own rooooom!" Milo continued.

"Why are, you so, uh…introverted?" the Joker asked irritably.

"I don't like people," Milo shrugged.

"No one, uh, at all?" the Joker asked.

"Wait, that's a lie-ee," Milo snickered, "I like the people who clean my house."

The Joker slammed out of the room, banging the door shut behind him. Milo was getting on his nerves. He heard her hysterical laughter floating through the door behind him, following him down the hall, taunting him. He hunched his shoulders even more.

"What's going on with her boss?" Ace asked his employer as he nursed his broken nose sulkily.

"We, ah, are keeping her until she, uh, leaves to, uh, complete her little…assignment," the Joker giggled.

"Which would be?" Ace prodded.

"None of, uh, your business," the Joker hissed.

"How is she anyway?" another henchman asked.

"Aw, how, uh, sentimental of you, uh, Trey," the Joker grinned. "You're in love with, uh, a murderer."

The man flinched back slightly as the Joker tossed his head back, green-tinted hair flying back, and howled in sinful delight.

"I'm not," the man named Trey defended himself, "I just thought…"

"You don't think, uh, Trey," the Joker hissed. "I, uh, do all the thinking for our, uh, organization."

Trey backed away, face hidden in the shadows and his own, messy dark hair, cringing.

"She, uh, is not to be touched," the Joker ordered, this time addressing the whole room. "She's a, uh, very important pawn in, ah, my little game."

The men surrounding the Joker nodded.

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Milo paced the inside of her dingy little room, hands tracing the scratches on the wall and her feet stepping over the body of the Joker's 'toy' once every rotation. Milo shook her now bare foot in disgust as it slid through a slick puddle of congealing blood the pooled near the deceased woman's head.

Milo placed her thin, cracked hands on her slim hips and stared down at the corpse with obvious distain and a little bit of humor floating around her scabbed lips. With gentle fingers, Milo turned the woman's head slightly to the side, removing her limp arm from across her empty eyes. Milo sneered at the dead woman's weakness as she pushed the jammed window open and tasted the cold night air again, miraculously uninjured from her fall. Milo felt something like a superhero, only bad, impossible to kill with a multitude of lives.

Milo heaved the heavy body of the red-headed woman up to the open window; her torso resting on the sill, Milo gave her another shove and listened to the body crash into the fire-escape as it fell.

She snorted out her laughter, wondering why she hadn't hit the fire-escape when she fell.

Milo peered out the window, on her tip-toes looking down into the darkness; she couldn't see the body she had just pushed out of the window through the shadows. She smiled again.

Milo's smile faded, the room was empty and bland, she was bored, she was bored by the dullness of the room. She looked out harder in the dark; she groped to the left of the window, pale hand feeling for the cold metal of the fire-escape. She gripped her hand around a pitted, cold metal bar.

Grinning, Milo hoisted herself out the window, barefoot, over the blood on the sill and pulled herself onto the near-by fire-escape, scuffing her hands on the rough metal as she caught herself against the rail. A loud clang erupted as her knee connected with the metal, Milo laughed, clutching her throbbing knee.

She danced down the steps, throwing her body side to side, allowing it to smash into the rails as she laughed. A second light switched on in the window next to her own room, one of the Joker's henchmen, Ace, stuck his head out of the lit window.

Milo looked up and waved, grinning and letting the blood squeeze out of her lips.

Ace's head disappeared instantly, a clatter of footsteps ensued as he sprinted downstairs to warn his boss of Milo's escape. Milo laughed and felt her way out of the dingy, brick alleyway into the light of the main road, her feet numb in the cold night against the cold cement.

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"BOSS!" Ace shouted. "She's gone, Milo's gotten out."

Instantly, all the men slouched in the room were on high-alert. All except the one Ace expected to be most upset.

"Yes, uh, what do you, ah, want me to do about, uh, that?" the Joker laughed.

"Don't you want her back?" Ace asked, dumbfounded at his employer's complexities.

"As far as, uh, I'm concerned, Ace," the Joker smiled. "She can do, ah, whatever she, uh, pleases as long as she, uh, holds up her end of the bargain, which, ah, I know she will."

Ace stared at the Joker incredulously.

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Milo skipped wildly down the bright street, spinning around a lamp-post, earning much deserved stares. She continued to skip crazily on the side-walk, frightening the hookers and dealers that populated the streets. They stared but did nothing, they knew their place, and their place was not to draw attention to themselves by making a scene with a lunatic, especially if that lunatic belonged to someone who was higher up on the street-food-chain than themselves.

Milo pulled out a little book from inside her jeans pocket and consulted it, grinning, she changed her course, crossing the street carelessly, allowing cars to swerve away from her. She scribbled frantically on the little pad of paper, folded it, taped it shut, addressed it, placed a stamp on it and shoved it roughly in a near-by mailbox.

She continued on her deadly way, skipping and humming to herself.

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**Sorry to end so abruptly, but what I wanted to put next won't fit unless I end this chapter. I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions or ideas feel free to write me a message. Reviews are appreciated and desired, good or bad. If you read this story, review it or I will stop writing it.**


	11. Chapter 11: Invitation and Murders

**Welcome to part eleven. We're really flying through this! I'm so psyched that I've got so many chapters done so fast, usually I procrastinate a lot. I am, however, running out of ideas so any you have would be great! Please message me any ideas you have and please, please, please review my stories if you read them.**

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_Gotham Times_

_Edition 2231_

_Article 1, Page 1_

_The bomb blast that devastated St. Catherine's Girls Academy for the Mentally Gifted with only twelve survivors and caused by the serial killer, Milo Nightingale was a devastating event. Now, it seems the survivors of the event are being targeted by the same person who set the blast, Milo Nightingale. The first victim that was targeted was Mrs. Ford, who was killed in her new teaching post by Milo Nightingale by way of poisoning. The most recent victims were the four surviving students. They were discovered early this morning, in the basement of their new school, apparently strangled to death with their school scarves. We do not know why this heinous perpetrator continues to commit such disturbing acts but we do know that we need everyone with any information to step forwards and stop her in her tracks._

_-Tanya West_

The Joker crumpled up this morning's paper and tossed it on the floor, Ace scrambled to pick it up and get it out of his boss's way before his anger set in.

Surprisingly, the Joker only laughed.

All heads turned in the room as the main door smashed open violently. Milo's small form was silhouetted in the frame, grinning and clutching four scarves in her left hand, their colors dulled in the low lighting.

"I told you so," the Joker grinned at Ace, standing up, his shoulders hunched but bare of his long jacket.

The Joker's green sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, showing his pale but strong forearms. Milo tossed the four scarves onto the floor, smiling her signature bloody smile. She felt that unfamiliar emotion bubble up in her chest, a curiosity, and she pushed it back down and extinguished it angrily until it was nothing more than a small memory tucked away in a confidential drawer in the filing cabinet of her brain. Her smile switched to a scowl.

"Welcome, uh, home," the Joker grinned. "You've made quite the…impression on the media."

He tossed a fresh news paper at Milo who let it bounce off her chest with an impassive expression before bending to retrieve it from the cold, cement floor. There on the front page of the news paper was an article featuring a large picture of herself followed by an in depth description of her most recent crime. Milo grinned in triumph, blood spilling out of her lips and running down her chin and spattering on the news paper. She eagerly ripped the article from its place in the paper and fished some sticky-tack out of her pockets and pinned the bloody article jubilantly to the brick wall, kicking the discarded scarves out of her way.

She then took the time to read the article more thoroughly. A frown creased her brow. It made her angry and disappointed all at the same time.

"You've been busy," the Joker noted.

"I've been working," Milo grumbled, shoving her hands in her pockets after wiping the blood off her chin and pressing her lips together.

"On your little, ah, assignment?" the Joker asked with genuine but masked curiosity.

"No, I've got other stuff to do before I attend to that particular…matter," Milo informed the mad-man.

"Don't mess with me, dollface," the Joker threatened.

"I'm already a mess," Milo retorted, walking solemnly to the back staircase.

The Joker's henchmen looked to their boss for direction, he shook his head infinitesimally, they sat still as Milo slouched up the stairs to her 'room'.

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"What is it?" Mr. Gordon asked his new informer now that the foul Mr. Kerr was dead and the investigation was through with.

"Quadruple murder," the tall, thick woman named Lucinda informed her employer. "Students who escaped the St. Catherine's bombing."

"Milo's cleaning up after herself," Mr. Gordon sighed. "Creating more messes as she goes."

"What should we do?" Lucinda asked.

"Find the remaining survivors," Mr. Gordon ordered. "Send them somewhere secure, same procedure as with her psychiatrist, Mr. Johnson."

"Yes sir," Lucinda said, striding away to take the actions directed.

Mr. Gordon fell back on his stress habit, running his hand through his tidy hair, mussing it heavily. He sat at his desk and sorted through the mail that was cleared through security, one in particular caught his eye. A plain, lined sheet of paper torn straight from a notebook, folded, addressed and stamped without an envelope. He opened it tentatively with sure fingers.

The pencil handwriting on the inside was messy, loopy and difficult to decipher, but it was very plain that it was an anonymous tip. There was an address and the word murder written on the paper. And the most defining feature of the note was on the back, a scribbled signature that read _Milo K. Nightingale._

Mr. Gordon snapped to attention immediately.

"Lucinda!" he shouted across the office, the flustered woman scurried across the office, clutching a sheet of paper in her hand.

"Yes sir?" she stuttered.

"Stop what you're doing, get me a team," Mr. Gordon fired out orders as Lucinda scribbled them down on her note-pad. "Milo's given us a tip, we need to leave _now_!"

Lucinda nodded curtly and rushed off to complete his orders.

Mr. Gordon himself set to getting ready, pulling on his bullet-proof vest, strapping his holsters on, loading his guns and struggling into his GPD official vest before rushing down to the car with his team in it in the parking garage.

The address Mr. Gordon and his team reached was a dingy apartment building, the very same building that Mole had been killed in. The team rushed to the thirteenth floor, the same floor Mole had been killed on and to the apartment that was numbered eight, the same apartment building that Mole and Allison had been killed in.

Mr. Gordon broke the door in and stumbled back from the stench, two corpses were decaying in the living-room, resting on a plastic sheet, on the exact spot where Mole had been discovered.

Five more corpses were strewn about the bedroom, each posed carefully on a plastic sheet in the five places Allison had been before she had been killed. The place where Allison had been found was covered with a plastic sheet without a body on it. There were words on the plastic sheet.

The message on the plastic was written in black permanent marker, Milo's writing utensil of choice.

The block letters spelled out _Batman_ on the plastic sheet.

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The Joker stomped up the stairs after Milo and ripped her door open, she didn't acknowledge his entrance at all, she continued to sit on the floor and stare up at the giant map of Gotham city that she had plastered over one wall, hiding the scratch marks the previous tenant, the Joker's 'toy', had scratched into the drywall.

The Joker cleared his throat, straightening his shoulders just a bit.

"I know very well you're there," Milo told him dryly, still not moving except for her stained lips.

"You haven't started your assignment," the Joker hissed, "How can I, ah, trust you?"

"Why _would_ you trust me?" Milo sneered. "And I _have_ started; I started on my assignment," she paused to check her pocket-watch, "precisely three hours and forty four minutes ago."

"How?" the Joker demanded.

"Magic," Milo scorned before turning to stare intently at the map before her, reddish lips pressed tightly together.

The Joker walked out of the room, stomping his feet angrily and stormed downstairs, stopping on his way out only to collect a noose and a kitchen knife.

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Milo listened to the Joker leave, straining her ears for any indication that he was returning, once she was certain that he wasn't, she pulled a permanent marker from within her well stocked pockets, uncapped it and set it to the dirty white wall.

Numbers, letters and symbols streamed out of the pen onto the wall until the other three walls were covered with complex equations, Milo grinned as she wrote in the final answer, the variables working together to give her an answer that she wanted. Needed.

There was a soft knock on the door, dragging Milo kicking and screaming out of her world of permanent marker equations. She glared angrily at the door as it slid quietly open, it wasn't the Joker, she already knew that, she had watched him leave with a noose and knife in hand from her window. A figure with messy dark hair entered the room.

"Hi," he said breathlessly.

"What do you want Trey?" Milo hissed sharply, brandishing her marker like a dagger.

"I was, um," Trey started.

"Spit the goddamn thing out before I stab you to death with my marker," Milo spat irritably.

"I was wondering how you were," Trey said in one breath, words mashing together as he tossed them out of his mouth.

"I fell out of a window, how do you think I am?" Milo sneered.

"I-," Trey began.

"I'm fi-ine!" Milo shrieked happily, cutting Trey off before he could really start.

She waved her hands around, one of her pinkies crooked. It had broken and set wrong after her fall.

Trey muttered something under his breath.

"Wha-at?" Milo asked, leaning in conspiratorially, blood stains on the creases in her lips, the place where her bottom lip met top and the pale skin just beneath her bottom lip.

Trey controlled the urge to cringe.

"Do you-do you need anything?" he stuttered.

Milo laughed hysterically, tears pricking at the corners of her grey eyes.

Trey turned to leave.

"I need, haha, a set of chemicals," Milo choked through her laughter, shoving a piece of note paper at Trey with a grocery list of dangerous chemicals written in permanent marker on it. "And, heehee, glassware."

Trey backed slowly out of the room, leaving Milo hollering with laughter behind him, his eyes already scanning the list the woman had pressed fervently into his warm hand with her cold fingers.

He walked down the stairs slowly, still looking at the list, it was there one moment and then it was gone.

Trey snatched for the paper where it was in Deuce's grip, high above the tall man's sandy haired head, too high for Trey to reach.

"Passin' love notes with the loonie?" Deuce mocked openly.

"Boss told me to get her whatever she needed!" Trey insisted, reaching for the list.

Ace and Deuce laughed in harmony as Trey jumped for the sheet of paper high above Deuce's head.

"Deuce, don't be stupid," a voice came, thick with a New York accent.

Deuce, Ace and Trey all turned to look at the man striding easily into the main room of the Joker's lair.

"Sorry King," Deuce said remorsefully, handing the paper back to the panting Trey.

"Damn straight you are," King barked, smacking Deuce on the back of the head as he walked by, plopped down on the couch and snapped the news paper open on his knees.

The Joker's three other henchmen sat quietly in a moment and there was silence except for the vague sound of Milo's hysterical laughter floating down the stairs from her room where she laughed herself to sleep on the blank floor in front of the huge map that hung on her wall.

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Milo slept soundly, twitching slightly in her sleep as she dreamt. A pair of eyes watched her carefully from the door, something other than lunacy in mind.

The Joker turned and stole quietly from Milo's room, bloody knife in hand but noose left behind around his victim's neck.

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_Gotham Times_

_Edition 2232_

_Article 1, Page 1_

_The remaining survivors of the St. Catherine's bomb blast were found brutally murdered yesterday evening at the site of a murder that occurred previously and was dismissed as a homicide/suicide. That murder is now being reinvestigated as a product of Milo Nightingale's disturbing sense of humor. The deceased include the two janitors who survived and the remaining five teachers, not including Mrs. Ford who was previously murdered by the same killer as her now dead co-workers. The ravaging lunatic continues to kill, we advise people to travel in groups, never go anywhere after dark and carry pepper spray._

_-Tanya West_

Milo read the new article, tacking it up irritably next to her last triumph.

She frowned at the pairing and moved the first article three centimeters to the left. She looked at it again and nodded in approval before turning around to face the Joker who was lounging aimlessly on the couch, flipping through the radio stations.

Milo flicked a piece of creamy white stock paper into the Joker's lap.

"What, uh, is this?" the Joker asked irritably.

"I'm going to a par-tay!" Milo squealed.

The Joker stared blankly at Milo.

"Bruce Wayne's party," Milo supplied easily. "Dress pretty!"

"Are you having a…seizure?" the Joker snapped.

"Nope!" Milo grinned, spinning in a clumsy pirouette and falling into the chair next to the Joker, her bloody fingertips tracing a smile on her face. "I'm ex-cite-ed!"

The Joker shrunk deeper into the couch, hunching his shoulders and grimacing at Milo's sickly sweet smile that she had plastered on her bloody lips.

She noticed his grimace and smiled wider, flashing all of her white teeth.

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**Okay, I was desperately trying to make this chapter longer, but it just felt too forced so I ended it there. I hope you all like it and I've gotten some really good reviews, so thank you. If you do read this story, please review it, any review is appreciated especially constructive criticism. Thanks for reading! Messages are appreciated too! Oh, and just remember, no review=end of story.**


	12. Chapter 12: It's Party Time

**Sorry it's taken me forever to update, I've been busy and uninspired. I have honestly no idea where this chapter of the story is going so it might fly a little out of control but please, bear with me in this. I'm a bit of a lunatic myself. Just kidding, anyway, review or there will be no more chapters. Welcome to chapter 12. Enjoy!**

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It was late, dark outside and dangerous. Gotham was always dangerous.

But Milo had plans, she had an _invitation_.

She spent the better part of the evening in the dingy little room that served as a bathroom, dressing herself carefully, tidying her hair and perfecting her face. She checked the pocket-watch she had dangling from the front of her ivory-colored dress; it read 6:13 pm, time to go. Milo struggled into her silver heels and floated down the stairs into the large warehouse room of the Joker's hideout.

She grinned through lips that were slicked with bright red lipstick at the men in the room; Trey gawked longer than the other henchmen. The only person who didn't look was the Joker who kept his eyes carefully focused on the television.

The only thing was, the television screen was blank.

Milo let out a heavy breath through her nostrils and stormed out of the room, snatching a set of keys out of Trey's eager hands. She sat heavily in the front seat of the one normal car that lay dormant in the garage; Milo put the key in the ignition and listened to the engine roar to life before slamming her heeled foot onto the gas pedal and peeling out into the dark streets, a menace to society and human beings in general.

Milo parked the dark blue sedan deep in the city's public parkades, her expression was enough to keep the criminals lurking within to stay far away from her. She grinned, her lips already red with lip color but blood welled up from behind the color anyway.

She took the stairs up to street level and walked slowly and surely to Mr. Wayne's building where his party was being held. She entered the sleek building, looking at the reflection of her feet in the polished marble floor of the swanky apartment building. She tapped her foot three times on the creamy floor while waiting for the elevator to reach ground level.

The elevator pinged gently as Milo finished putting in her second contact, three people stepped out, Milo smiled and nodded, they smiled and nodded back as Milo stepped into the elevator past them, holding tightly to her silver clutch with her left hand and checking the pocket-watch she had tucked into the front of her dress. She was right on time.

The elevator hummed its way upwards towards the penthouse; Milo crossed herself nervously three times. The little numbers ticked by above the door all the way up until it hit the number sixteen.

Sixteen divided by two was Milo's lucky number; this would be a good night.

The elevator pinged for a second time and the doors slid open revealing a grand scale party beyond them. Milo slid her convincing smile into place, checked her reflection in the reflective glass that coated the wall around the elevator doors. Satisfied, Milo walked silkily into the crowd, her dress shifting smoothly around her long slim legs, heels clicking.

She smiled politely at Bruce Wayne's guests, made small talk and was generally pleasant, but kept her hands wrapped tightly around her clutch purse while she socialized. Milo dismissed herself genially from a chatty group, excusing herself to speak with Bruce Wayne alone.

She sidled up next to the wealthy businessman and waited for the people he was currently speaking to enjoyably to exit. They left shortly and Milo stepped up before Bruce Wayne, opening her clutch purse slightly.

"Hello Mr. Wayne," Milo said, putting her voice a pitch higher than it was naturally.

"Welcome, thank you for attending my party Ms.?" Bruce Wayne said, smiling and raising his glass of champagne to clink it against Milo's own martini.

"Call me Milo," the dark haired girl hissed, pulling a tiny phial from her purse. "Don't move."

Her warning froze Bruce in his tracks.

"What do you want?" he asked holding a smile stiffly on his strained face.

"I just want to talk," Milo said. "I don't have anything else in my bag, you won't be harmed, I promise."

"You also promised that you wouldn't try anything funny while you were given your equipment back in prison," Bruce spat.

"I double pinky swear," Milo sighed, holding out her crooked pinky to Bruce Wayne.

"What happened to you?" Bruce asked.

"I fell out of a window," Milo shrugged.

"What do you want to talk about?" Bruce asked.

"Can we talk somewhere more…private?" Milo asked, fiddling with the little phial that shone within her newly manicured fingers.

"Fine," Bruce said, resting his hand on Milo's lower back and guiding her away from the main party.

A few men winked lewdly at the two people and several women stared, but Milo ignored both of these provocations and allowed Bruce to lead her farther away from his vulnerable guests. He guided Milo through a door and into a side room, his study, furnished in rich leather and sumptuous wood.

"Have a seat," Bruce Wayne offered generously, as though Milo was simply a business client. "You look lovely."

"Thank you," Milo said, seating herself gently in a dark green leather chair that situated behind a large wooden desk.

"You wanted to talk?" Wayne asked as he watched Milo play absently with the pens on his desk, sorting them from largest to smallest, spacing them evenly.

"I did," Milo said, re-sorting the pens according to color.

"Do you still wish to talk?" Bruce asked Milo, his hand twitching near his pocket, fingers itching to call Jim Gordon.

"Ah, ah, ah," Milo hissed. "Don't be calling your little friend Mr. Gordon…._Batman_."

"What did you say?" Bruce asked, suddenly on red-alert.

"Guilty are we?" Milo grinned.

"Of what?" Bruce laughed, trying to scorn off Milo's accusation.

"You are Batman," Milo said, twisting the phial in her fingers.

"What's that?" Batman asked, pointing to the glass tube.

"It's rude to point," Milo snapped.

Bruce rolled his eyes.

"I have a…proposition for you," Milo suggested.

"What kind of proposition?" Bruce asked.

"Drink this and I'll tell you," Milo said, holding the little phial out in her hand towards Bruce.

Bruce knocked the phial roughly out of Milo's clean hands and it shattered on the floor, Milo looked down at the spilled liquid distastefully. Bruce put his hand in his pocket and pulled out his cell-phone, he flipped it open and put it to his ear, hitting a speed dial button. Milo could hear the number dialing.

"It won't work," Milo told him.

"Why not?" Bruce snarled, flinging his phone to the office floor and watching it shatter over the broken phial.

"Your signal's scrambled," Milo said, shifting her legs in her chair.

"How?" Bruce asked harshly.

"Do you really think that I couldn't do that?" Milo asked. "After all I've done for this town."

"You've done nothing for this town," Bruce hissed. "You've just ripped it further than it was already torn."

"You have no idea how much I've done for this town," Milo laughed. "You have no idea."

"I want you to stop this now," Bruce said, edging closer to Milo.

"What you want and what is going to happen are two very different things," Milo shrugged, standing up slowly while holding her little bag far away from her own body.

"Don't move," Bruce ordered.

Milo laughed, "Why should I listen to you?"

"Because it's the right thing to do," Bruce said, taking another step towards Milo.

"What's in it for me?" Milo asked.

"A legitimate life," Bruce said. "You turn in the Joker, you get counseling, you get a legitimate life."

"I'll think about it," Milo said. "And, for now, I'd like to leave, un-harrassed if you'd please."

"No, I can't do that," Bruce said.

"Since when are you a lawyer anyway?" Milo asked. "What would you be doing making legal arrangements for me?"

"I can help, my name means a lot in this town," Bruce said.

"So does mine," Milo retorted, moving around the desk towards the door and away from Bruce.

"Don't even," Bruce warned, stepping in front of the door, hands held up to restrain Milo should she try to escape.

"You know, you really shouldn't have dropped your cell-phone," Milo said, looking uninterestedly towards the cellphone in the pool of liquid on the carpet.

"Wha-," Bruce began, but before he could finish his sentence or even his thought, Milo tossed her silver bag onto the broken cell-phone and puddle of unknown liquid.

The little pile went up in flames, violently.

Milo cackled and scooted past Bruce back into the main area of the party as he struggled to put out the fire with his jacket. Milo hurried through the room crowded with people until she reached the elevator, it pinged and she leapt inside, hitting the 'close door' button before anyone else could follow her in.

The elevator rushed downwards and Milo tapped her feet anxiously, crossing herself three times successively. It hit ground level and Milo rushed out, holding the skirt of her dress up off the floor and running over the slippery marble floor Milo had so admired earlier.

The second elevator pinged open behind her, Bruce Wayne rushed out of it after Milo who looked back anxiously at him and hurried faster across the floor until she was outside the rotating doors that created the entrance to the apartment building. Milo grinned at Bruce as he ran towards her, full-tilt, saluted and waited.

Bruce reached the rotating door and pushed, it didn't move.

He pushed harder and the door still didn't open.

Milo kissed the glass door, leaving a bright red lip-stick print and saluted Bruce as she rushed down towards the parking garage where her blue escape vehicle was parked.

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After Milo disappeared from view, there was a clicking sound as Bruce threw his weight onto the rotating door, a lip-stick tube fell out of the mechanisms that turned the door and Bruce tore out of the building. He followed the sound of Milo's laughter down to the parking garage where she was waiting next to her sedan, keys in hand, grinning.

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Milo skipped back into the Joker's lair, grinning, holding her set of keys to the sedan, bloody and bent. Blood stained the front of Milo's beautiful cream dress red.

Her lips were red too.

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**Okay, I meant for this to be longer, but it just made sense to end it here. It's almost like a cliff hanger. I hope you all like it. Reviews and constructive criticism are appreciated, and no reviews=no more chapters. Thanks! **


	13. Chapter 13:Chemicals and Explosions

**Part 13. Yay, 13 is an unlucky number, will it be unlucky for Batman, just kidding. I'm rambling, sorry about that, it's a bad habit. Anyway, I didn't get many reviews on my last chapter. When you review this chapter, please do not review with things like 'good' or 'nice writing'. I want real feedback in real sentences in real paragraphs please. Thanks, and remember, no reviews mean the story stops here.**

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"I'm ho-ome!" Milo sang out as the Joker turned to look at her.

"What did you, uh, do?" the Joker asked, indicating Milo's bloody dress and keys.

"How about you?" Milo asked. "What _didn't _you do tonight?"

"I didn't stay home like you so obviously think I did," the Joker shrugged.

"How sad," Milo hummed. "I might have finished my _assignment_ if you had stayed home."

"What are you rambling about?" the Joker asked.

"No-othing!" Milo grinned, brushing a hair off the front of her bloody dress.

"Tell me what you, uh, disposed of!" the Joker demanded.

"Goo-od ni-ight!" Milo laughed, her voice broke and she scampered up the stairs to her room.

Milo hurried into her room and slammed the heavy door behind her without flipping the light on, she laughed for a short while before flicking the switch on and coming face to face with Trey.

"Holy Jesus," Milo said, leaping back a foot and slamming her back into the door. "What the hell are you doing Trey? I could have killed you!"

"I-," Trey stuttered.

"Did you get my chemicals?" Milo asked, ignoring what Trey was attempting to tell her.

"Yes, but-," Trey began.

"Where are they?" Milo asked.

"There," Trey said, gesturing to a table covered in an array of glassware and carefully labeled bottles and phials. "But-."

"Spit it out Trey, I haven't got time for this," Milo said absently, inspecting the glassware that was scattered over the table.

"You've got, um-," Trey began.

"Tick tock," Milo muttered.

"Mail," Trey finished. "You've got mail."

"Mail?" Milo asked, turning quickly to Trey, eyes glittering. "Where? Give me my letter!"

"How did you know it was a letter?" Trey asked suspiciously.

"Magic," Milo snapped and snatched the little, crumpled envelope out of Trey's fingers.

She tore the seal open and emptied the envelope over her hand, a tiny, folded bit of paper fell out into her palm, she opened the bit of paper and scanned the letters with her eyes over and over until Trey sat down to wait for her to finish. Milo finally threw the bit of paper down, mouth open and gaping without actually saying anything.

"What?" Trey asked.

"Shut up and get out," Milo said, hurrying to the table of chemicals that sat innocently in the corner of the room.

"Why?" Trey asked.

"Get out or die," Milo growled through her teeth.

Trey fled the room immediately, slamming the door behind himself and leaving Milo to finish what she needed to do. Milo looked at the little article that fell out of the envelope she had been given, another derogatory piece by Tanya West about the sudden disappearance of Gotham's Playboy Bruce Wayne. Milo gritted her teeth as she pulled on a long white lab-coat she had filched from a school lab, leaving behind a map and a dead science teacher, she snapped on the goggles that she had taken from the very same lab and pulled on her protective gloves.

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_Gotham Times_

_Edition 2233_

_Article 1, Page 1_

_Early this morning, just hours after Bruce Wayne of Wayne Enterprises' startling disappearance from his penthouse where he was hosting a party, another significant death in the Milo Nightingale case was discovered in the Gotham Times News Building. News writer Tanya West was discovered dead this morning at 7:17 am when a co-worker entered their workplace early and found her slumped over her desk with a map pinned to her forehead, Milo Nightingale's trademark. It appears that Tanya West was killed due to inhalation of deadly chemicals. It appears that Milo Nightingale is well tutored in the field of chemistry. Her chemical compilation was not crude and uneducated, they were mixed precisely and stolen from various suppliers. This tragedy will not be the last until Milo is captured._

_-Frank Kirkwood_

Milo grinned at the article as the Joker's henchman, Ace; passed it to her over the table she was sitting at.

"Bruce Wayne disappeared?" Ace asked. "What did you do to him?"

"Ace, you _wound_ me," Milo laughed. "That you think I would ever do such a thing!"

"Why do you need Bruce Wayne?" Ace asked.

"What on earth are you talking about?" Milo asked sweetly.

"I asked you a question," Ace growled.

"I don't need to answer that," Milo said. "I don't _have _to answer any questions at all."

Ace growled through his teeth and slunk off into the shadows, away from the irritation that was Milo. Milo made a rude face at him as he left and watched the Joker's henchman's face twist in irritation. Ace moved towards Milo, hand in his pocket where Milo knew very well he kept his weapon of choice, a small pistol, she darted out of his way, maneuvering so that the couch was between the two people.

"Answer me bitch," Ace growled.

"I'm not your bitch," Milo snarled, putting her own hand in her pocket and pulling out a tube of clear liquid with a cord snaking through it and a charge in her other hand.

"Ah, ah, ah," she grinned. "Don't move or I blow us both sky-high."

Ace moved his hand away from his pocket and put both of his hands in the air, behind his head.

"Good," Milo said. "Now I want you to put your hand in your pocket, slowly, take out the gun, and slide it over here."

Ace didn't move his hands.

"Now!" Milo snapped.

Ace moved his left hand slowly to his left pocket, removed the small pistol that resided therein, slowly lowered to the ground and slid it gently under the couch to where Milo was standing holding her home-made bomb. Milo trapped it under her sneaker clad foot and bent down, keeping her eyes on Ace all the time.

"Keep your hands up," Milo instructed. "Back up three steps."

Milo expertly dismantled the gun by her foot with one hand, removing the bullets and taking the weapon completely apart before straightening up and kicking the remnants beneath the couch. Milo kept her hand on the charge, carefully keeping the couch between Ace and herself as she scooted closer to the door where the exit sign glowed a dull red.

The door crashed open before Milo could reach it.

The Joker stepped in; the triumphant expression on his painted face fell, switching smoothly to unhindered anger.

"Where have you been?" Milo asked, her wary eyes flicking between the Joker and Ace.

"Out," the Joker replied. "The, uh, question is, what are _you _doing?"

Milo shrugged, "Nothing, I'm just _catching_ up with Ace."

"Put that down, uh, Milo," the Joker snapped, pointing at the bomb in Milo's hands.

Milo looked thoughtful for a moment, her eyes pondering, moments later, she grinned, dropped the tube full of clear liquid

"Oops," Milo grinned, pressing her thumb down on the charge button.

Ace and the Joker's eyes widened, they had no idea that Milo was such a lunatic.

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**Sorry it was so short, again, but it just made sense to end it here as a sort of cliff-hanger. I promise all will be explained in the next chapter. Anyway, make sure you review or there will be no more chapters, as of now, you readers owe lots of the chapters to a few reviewers. Thanks to OkamiKunoichi21, mandya1313 and Ebo94. Thanks for the great reviews and keep it up. **


	14. Chapter 14: Prison, Prisoners and Deals

**I'm writing this new chapter so soon because I really need to find out what's going to happen for myself because this story is running wild and out of control, which is kind of a good thing. Anyway, keep reviewing, I love reviews! Remember, no reviews=no new chapters.**

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A huge explosion rocked the building that Milo, the Joker and Ace stood in. A blast of heat burst through the building and broke the glass of the windows that were situated high up in the brick wall, the newspaper articles that Milo had pinned carefully to the wall fluttered free of their sticky tack and flew high up in the room, lit by a red-orange glow that burst through the broken, darkened windows.

Milo, Ace and the Joker were flung to the ground.

"What the hell did you do, you crazy bitch?" Ace howled.

"Bye!" Milo yelled back, struggling to stand and staggering out of the building into the dark alleyway.

A burning van smoldered in the alley and Milo giggled as she walked past it, the scent of burnt metal and rubber stinging her nose. She listened to the sound of sirens screaming through the streets as she leapt into the blue sedan she had parked just outside the door and rushed out into the streets before the police could arrive at the blast site.

There was a moan from the back seat as a figure stirred.

"Hush," Milo said soothingly, patting the figure none-too-gently on the head as she maneuvered the streets one-handed.

The figure squirmed even harder and Milo removed her hand from the back seat and put it back on the wheel as she drove calmly past the police as they rushed to her newest crime scene.

Milo threw her head back and laughed, slamming her foot on the gas pedal.

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Mr. Gordon's crime unit roared into a small alleyway, a van, burnt out, lay on its side against the building on the left hand side of the little, enclosed road. Jim Gordon leapt out of his car, GPD vest glinting in the dull, shifting light. A little map lay on the ground in front of the burnt van, Mr. Gordon snatched up the little bit of paper and opened it up.

_Try the next building_ was scrawled across the paper in permanent marker.

Mr. Gordon looked up and over to the dingy brick warehouse that was to his right, he called a unit of men over, drew his gun and stepped slowly into the building. A figure lay on the floor of the warehouse, still and unmoving in the smoky air. Mr. Gordon moved slowly towards the figure and flipped it over.

"Oh my god," Mr. Gordon whispered to himself as he got a look at the face of the unconscious man.

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Milo parked the blue sedan behind the building that her old apartment was in, her apartment, she grinned at that thought, that it was hers. She opened the side door and looked thoughtfully at the unmoving figure that was sprawled across the light beige leather of the plush sedan's back seat. She gently lifted the person's arm and let it slip through her fingers, landing limply back on the seat.

Milo leaned in and wrapped her arms carefully around the broad chest of Bruce Wayne, her current prisoner.

An hour and eight minutes later, according to Milo's pocket watch, Bruce was laying across her couch, still insensible and drooling as Milo glared at him and flexed her fingers, cursing him for being so heavy and cursing the dreaded elevator for being out of order.

Milo sat on the living room couch after pushing Bruce Wayne off of it unceremoniously; she had the remote control in one hand and her feet resting on Bruce's inert back as she folded her blood stained cream dress carefully while watching the shopping channel intently. Milo looked away from the television and back down to the bloody dress on her lap, she sighed and placed it in the fire-place, lighting up a cigarette, taking a drag and placing the tip of the cigarette to the dress and watching it catch fire.

She sighed and turned back to the television, annoyed that she had to get rid of a souvenir of such a momentous occasion.

Milo nodded off momentarily and was awakened when her living footrest stirred slightly beneath her. Milo looked down at Bruce Wayne as he blinked slowly, opening his eyes and trying to sit up, Milo pushed him back down with her foot.

"Good morning sleepy-head," Milo cooed.

Bruce groaned and shook his head, looking down at the front of his wrinkled and blood stained dress shirt.

"Where am I?" he asked groggily.

"Why, here of course," Milo replied, gesturing around the room.

"Why am I _here_?" Bruce asked, his voice getting louder as he strained to stand up, resisting the pressure Milo was pushing him down with.

"I wanted to…talk," Milo said, "a little more in depth."

"Talk fast before I take you in to the police," Bruce growled.

"That's not an option," Milo laughed. "Not at all."

"The things you've done…" Bruce trailed off.

"Wah, wah, wah," Milo mocked, "cry me a river and I'll drown you in it."

Bruce hissed through his teeth at Milo, pushing upwards with his back. Milo laughed and pushed down brutally hard on Bruce's neck, sending him sprawling back onto the dingy carpet that covered the living-room floor.

"Talk fast Milo," Bruce muttered, cheek pressed into the fibers of the carpet.

"You offered me something once," Milo said. "A legitimate life, right? In exchange for turning myself and the Joker in."

Bruce nodded silently.

"What if you were making the wrong kind of offer?" Milo suggested.

Bruce thought this through carefully, maybe Milo was right, maybe he had been offering the wrong kind of compensation to her, maybe he should have offered something a little less normal. He realized quickly that Milo didn't want normal, she wanted just the opposite.

"What do you want me to offer?" Bruce asked, choking slightly on the dust that was embedded in the carpet.

"When did you ever assume I wanted a legitimate life, Batman?" Milo grinned. "You don't have a legitimate life, I want what you have."

"Which is?" Bruce prompted.

"I want a double life," Milo said smugly. "I want to be what I am now, and I want to be what you are too."

"That's not possible," Bruce spat, amazed that Milo would ask such a thing. "You can't be a criminal and a hero!"

"According to you, Batman is whatever the city needs," Milo shrugged. "Maybe this city _needs_ another set of criminals and another hero."

"Gotham doesn't need anything you have to offer," Bruce growled.

"That's a shame," Milo sighed theatrically, "I've already delivered the Joker to your Mr. Gordon."

"What?" Bruce asked, surprise outweighing anger.

"I suppose I'll just have to get a refund then, won't I?" Milo said, feigning irritation. "Return you, get the Joker back. Oh, wait, I can't return you."

"Let me go!" Bruce shouted.

"Shush, you'll wake the neighbors," Milo chided. "You have to stay, I promised you to the Joker and if I have to break him out, he'll be very annoyed that he doesn't have you."

"Why does he want me?" Bruce asked, breath catching in his throat, hoping he could call Milo's bluff.

He thought she was bluffing anyway, what if she wasn't?

Milo leaned down and put her lips next to Bruce's ear.

"You're _Batman_," she hissed into his ear, he shuddered as her warm breath fluttered on his skin.

Milo sat back up, fiddled in her pocket, moments later, Bruce felt a sharp pain in his neck and then…nothing.

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Jim Gordon stood in a seemingly familiar scene, here he was, outside the holding cage, and there, behind bars, was Gotham's madman, the Joker. Jim frowned solemnly, this was an old scene, but last time it hadn't ended well, last time it had ended in near disaster. Jim was determined not to let it happen that way again, it would go his way this time, the Joker _would _answer his questions and the Joker _would_ be put away and would never get out.

The Joker noticed Jim Gordon staring, he laughed harshly.

"We meet again," the Joker grinned, sitting on the bench, hands on his knees. "Do you, uh, remember how it ended last time?"

"What's your name, Joker?" Jim asked, cutting to the chase and ignoring the Joker's little biting comments.

"…Do you…know who got me in here?" the Joker asked, inserting pauses into his sentence.

Jim Gordon shook his head.

"Trust got me in here," the Joker told Jim. "I trusted, just a little bit for one person not to screw me over, nothing more, just to not screw me over. Do you know why else I'm in here? It's because I trusted someone who wasn't afraid of me. See what happens when the people you trust aren't afraid of you? You get screwed over."

Jim Gordon remembered something Milo had said about getting screwed over by snitching, he was almost sure the Joker wasn't going to tell him who turned him in, but Mr. Gordon had a pretty good guess of who it was, there were only two people in Gotham capable of this.

"Milo did this, didn't she?" Jim laughed.

The Joker frowned momentarily, not pleased that a city cop was _laughing_ at him.

"And the player wins the…prize," the Joker squealed in delight, trying to regain some lost dignity.

"I do, don't I?" Gordon said. "I won you."

"Sorry Detective," the Joker snickered, "my heart belongs to someone else already."

"Very funny Joker," Gordon said sourly as the Joker laughed wildly in his holding cell, almost rolling on the ground from laughter.

"Oh, hee hee, ha, it, ahaha, is just _too_, haha, funny," the Joker crowed.

It was Mr. Gordon's turn to frown.

"You are going to Arkham," Mr. Gordon told the Joker. "There's nothing you can do, but it would go better if you gave yourself up."

"You just don't get it do you Gordon?" the Joker asked. "You've never gotten it, have you?"

"Stop talking stupid," Mr. Gordon ordered.

"I'm not the one who's going to be talking stupid," the Joker said. "Not when you're on your knees with a tube full of explosives down your throat."

"Is that a threat?" Mr. Gordon snapped, his patience wearing.

"Oh, you'd better believe it," a silky voice hissed from the doorway.

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**I'm really crappy at cliff-hangers, but I try. So anyway, this is part 14, is being stupid and isn't letting me upload any new stories so sorry for the wait. Remember to review because otherwise there aren't going to be any new chapters. This story is running wildly out of control, I never know what's going to happen until it does so if you have any suggestions or comments about the plot, I'd love to hear them!**


	15. Chapter 15: The Burial

**I've written three chapters today, wow, that's super exciting, but the stupid Document Uploader won't let me upload them, that's driving me crazy. Anyway, I hope you're liking where this story is going, I sort of do and sort of don't. Remember to review because if you don't I won't post the next chapter.**

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Milo stepped through the door, pulling a heavy looking tote bag with her in one hand, an automatic machine gun clutched in the other. She grinned happily, her head lolling to one side. She had already managed to spill someone's blood down the front of her white blouse.

She was limping, blood seeping slowly from her leg; a bloody tie was wrapped around the wound.

"That most certainly was a threat," Milo said. "What else would it be?"

Mr. Gordon was lost for words, his mouth opened and closed like a goldfish as he stared at Milo, she moved slowly closer.

"Drop your gun Mr. Gordon," Milo ordered. "Unless you're going to shoot yourself for me."

"Good girl Milo!" the Joker grinned. "Good plan!"

"Shut up," Mr. Gordon snapped, trying to keep some sort of control over the situation.

"Don't touch your radio Mr. Gordon," Milo warned as she watched Jim Gordon's hand move slowly towards the short wave radio that was clipped to his belt, his hand shot back up into the air, next to his other hand.

"Very good Mr. Gordon," the Joker said. "Now toss your keys to Milo."

"I'm calling the shots here," Milo glared at the Joker, wincing from the weight she had accidentally let down on her leg when she shifted her weight.

The Joker looked confused, that emotion followed quickly by a sullen expression.

"What did you bring to show me?" Mr. Gordon asked.

"Why do you assume I brought _you_ anything?" Milo countered.

"Why else would you bring it?" the Joker asked.

"Personal reasons," Milo shrugged, digging through the bags. "I've got a house guest, I thought I'd ask if you recognize any of his things. See if you can figure out who it is. Use your superior skills."

"What?" Mr. Gordon asked, confused.

Milo pulled a dark object from her bag and held it up to the light; Mr. Gordon squinted to get a better look at the object. Its smooth curves glinted in the light and Jim Gordon was hit with sudden realization, he knew what the object was.

It was Batman's mask.

"Where did you get that?" Mr. Gordon breathed.

"I told you, it belongs to my house guest," Milo grinned.

"Oh-hoh!" The Joker exclaimed. "It just gets better and better, doesn't it Mr. Gordon."

"You shut up," Mr. Gordon growled.

"Don't be so demanding, Mr. Gordon," Milo sighed, "it's very tiring. The only reason I'm not going to kill you is because you're fun to toy with."

A blast echoed through the empty room.

Mr. Gordon collapsed to the ground, writhing in pain.

"I said I wouldn't kill you, I never said I wouldn't shoot you," Milo smiled, her lips cracking and oozing blood, coloring her trade-mark red smile. "Give me your keys, Mr. Gordon."

Mr. Gordon slid his keys across the floor to Milo, she ditched her heavy tote-bag and pounced on the keys, limping over to the cell door where the Joker was waiting, keeping her machine gun pointed in Mr. Gordon's general direction.

"This is, ah, different," the Joker said grudgingly.

Milo fumbled with the keys, trying to fit them into the lock with her shaking hands, when the key was finally in the lock, she twisted it and collapsed.

The Joker opened the door and stepped out, over Milo's convulsing body. He stood there, staring at her for a few moments, debating about what to do.

"Aw shit," the Joker swore to himself before he lifted Milo up and slung her over his shoulder as he disappeared out the window, retreating down the fire escape, his footsteps echoing off the buildings.

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Milo opened her eyes slowly, looking around her, evaluating her situation before she did anything at all. The room she was in was large and plush, making her wonder why exactly she was there.

Footsteps sounded down the hall and the Joker strode in, shoulders hunched under his long jacket as his eyes narrowed into a glare within his painted face, his Glasgow smile accentuated with a frown.

"You blew up my warehouse," the Joker growled as Milo sat up slowly.

"So?" Milo asked. "I also saved you from prison didn't I?"

The Joker made a non-committed sound deep in his throat.

"What was that?" Milo grinned. "A word of thanks perhaps? Speak up, I can't hear you!"

The Joker glared.

"You don't get to hear about your surprise until you say thank-you-ou!" Milo sang, bending her stinging leg slightly.

"Thanks," the Joker mumbled under his breath.

"What?" Milo asked, feigning deafness and cupping one hand around her ear.

"Thanks," the Joker said, voice more audible than the first time.

"Wonderful," Milo grinned. "Now, I'm bored. Can I kill you?"

"Ah, excuse me?" the Joker asked as he turned to the door, exiting quickly.

"Nothing," Milo sang.

"It better have been," the Joker muttered, shutting the door behind himself.

Milo watched the door shut behind the Joker and waited, holding her breath carefully for thirty seconds exactly, according to her little silver pocket watch. She then surveyed the room carefully, it was large and for the most part, empty, the little couch that Milo was laying on was the only furniture in the vacant space. The floor of the room was sleek beige carpet, footprints tracked across the clean beige, marking where the Joker had stepped when he had entered.

Milo noticed a second set of dirty shoe-prints that didn't lead to the main door of the room, they lead to the closet. Milo stood, disregarding her injured leg as pain shot through it, she hefted her semi-automatic in her left hand and reached for the closet door with her right, she turned the brass knob slowly and opened the glossy wood door.

The tracks led to the back of the closet and ended abruptly at a wardrobe made of the same glossy wood as the door. Milo grinned and limped to the wardrobe. She put her lips to the key hole and breathed heavily into it, she heard the breath of whoever was in the wardrobe hitch and stop.

"Found you," Milo whispered into the key hole before ripping the door open.

A trembling maid was scrunched into the corner of the wardrobe, hiding her face in her apron.

"P-ple-ease," the maid stuttered, tears streaming down her face.

"Where am I?" Milo asked.

"G-gotham," the woman told Milo.

Milo lifted the gun up and pointed it at the woman's face.

"More specific and I won't shoot you," Milo whispered, her white teeth glinting in the tastefully recessed lighting of the closet.

"The re-constructed Wayne M-manor," the maid replied.

Milo reached in through the door and dragged the cringing woman out of the wardrobe into the center of the huge walk-in closet.

"Whose room is this?" Milo asked.

"Mr. W-wayne," the woman sobbed.

"Bye-bye," Milo grinned, pulling a letter opener out of her pocket as she discarded her gun.

Milo pushed the woman's head forwards, in a flash of silver, a red streak appeared on the woman's sweaty neck and her body dropped to the carpet, spilling blood into the creamy beige carpet of the tasteful closet.

"Useless," Milo muttered as she stepped over the body, tossing the letter opener away and picking up her gun again. "But it is quite the interesting twist."

Milo heard the door to the room open again in the midst of her conversation with herself, she peered around the corner, practiced eyes scanning the scene.

The Joker was back.

"You said you had a surprise for me?" he said, flustered.

"I'm surprised it took you this long to remember," Milo said, slipping on a silver ring she had removed from the dead maid's finger.

"Is it impossible for you to, uh, stay clean?" the Joker asked, indicating the blood spatter that stained Milo's wild face and grey t-shirt.

"I find it isn't impossible, but simply an…inconvenience," Milo replied smartly.

"Anyway, my, uh, surprise," the Joker prompted.

"Nothing in life is free," Milo hissed, baring her bright teeth in a snarl.

"It is when it's me, uh, who gets the…surprise," the Joker said.

"Not even for you Mistah Jay," Milo grinned in a pouty, mock baby voice.

"What, uh, is it you want?" the Joker snapped through clenched teeth.

"What's your real name?" Milo asked.

"I can't, uh…disclose that information," the Joker told Milo stiffly.

"For this surprise," Milo murmured, stepping closer to the Joker, "I think you can."

"No," the Joker said flatly.

"No surprise then," Milo shrugged. "It was _really_ good."

Milo turned to hobble out of the room, her hand was on the brass knob, the same kind that was on the closet door, when she heard the Joker speak, calling her back.

"I'll cut you a deal," he suggested. "I see the surprise and then I'll tell you my name."

"How do I know I can trust you?" Milo asked without turning back. "You can't trust me, for all you know; my name might not even be Milo."

"Is that some sort of, uh, hint?" the Joker growled.

"Just a thought," Milo said, turning the door knob and disappearing into the re-constructed, yet empty, Wayne Manor.

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Bruce woke up again, only this time, not as a personal, live footstool for Milo, but alone in the dark. He tried to sit up but he only managed to raise a large bump on the back of his head in the tiny room. He groaned and rubbed his eyes, he felt strangely numb and tingly at the same time.

He remembered the sharp pain that had pierced his neck; Milo must have drugged him,

and the strange sensation in his limbs must be some sort of side effect. He cursed under his breath as he felt around in the tiny enclosed space for some sort of escape. His fingers felt the outline of a door, he pushed against it, but the door didn't relent, there seemed to be some sort of force pushing back on it.

A bright light switched on and Bruce covered his eyes, momentarily blinded. When his eyes were accustomed to the light, he looked around and nearly threw up, he was in a small plexi-glass box that he could barely crouch in, but that wasn't the problem, the problem was that the plexi-glass box seemed to be buried underground, judging by the dirt that was packed around it.

Bruce's breath caught in his lungs and his heart rate raced.

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**I really, really wanted to make this chapter longer but it didn't want to be longer. I totally could have made this into a Narnia crossover; Milo could have gone through the wardrobe into Narnia and gone on a killing spree there! Wouldn't that be fun! Ha-ha, anyway, review or there are no more chapters! Does anyone review on Sundays? Also message me please! I love, love, love your thoughts and opinions. I hope you love the story too!**


	16. Chapter 16: Happy Birthday, Surprise

**I posted three chapters and only one person reviewed! What's wrong with you all? What part of review or there won't be anymore chapters don't you get? Ack, it's so annoying. Anyway, on with the show. Review, review, review and review. Oh, and I owe my favorite line in this story to a great reviewer by the name of OkamiKunoichi21.**

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Milo had her permanent marker out.

Again.

She was laying, face down on her stomach in the main hall of the vacated Wayne Manor, her marker was running lines across the pale marble, very similar to the marble floor in the apartment building where Bruce had hosted his party before he had been so rudely interrupted by Milo's arrival and discussion.

Milo grinned, remembering that night and continued to doodle on the slick floor, aimless patterns; she wiggled her toes, waiting for the Joker to return home from whatever current errand he was on. Milo hummed gently to herself, checked her pocket watch that lay open before her as she scribbled graffiti onto the floor. The little watch read 6:27pm.

Milo grinned, capped her marker and rushed into the kitchen, her shoes clattering against the expensive hardwood that spread out on the kitchen floor. Milo pulled open a little drawer to the left of the shiny, stainless steel stove.

Milo pulled out a large, sharp kitchen knife, held it up to the light and watched the bright steel reflect the sharp light from the overhead lighting.

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The Joker tromped his way into the Wayne Manor, pleased with himself for acquiring the new hide-out in such a wonderful place, such a conspicuously inconspicuous place to hide while the whole of Gotham City was looking for him, Milo and Batman.

He moved slowly through the main hall, flanked by Trey and Ace, the Joker halted shortly in the center of the hall, backed up three steps, forcing Trey and Ace back behind him. He looked down between his brown loafers at the smooth marble flooring. The marble floor, no matter how smooth, was not entirely ashy and elegant, squiggly permanent marker lines rolled out across the creamy surface, indiscernible writing or patterns, whatever this was, it wasn't one of Milo's equations, it was something else. The Joker remembered Milo's file, he remembered the part about her relapses, he wondered if this was what one looked like.

The Joker stood very still, listening, an echoing crash resounded out of the kitchen, floating into the main hall of the Wayne Manor followed by a string of colorful curse words.

The Joker frowned.

It was Milo, but what on Earth was she doing in the kitchen? Had she found another member of the Wayne Manor staff?

The Joker walked slowly through the main hall, past the scribbles on the floor which he looked at most distastefully, through the dining room and into the sleek kitchen.

The Joker burst out laughing instantly.

Milo was standing in the midst of a miniature disaster dressed in a bright red dress, 50's style, and a pair of matching red pumps, hair smoothed into perfect curls but dusted in a thin layer of white flour. Her lips were slicked with red, not blood; red lipstick and they were set in a distinct frown, her hands holding a bowl full of some sort of lumpy substance.

"You know," the Joker half-laughed. "I should, uh, kill you and not worry about the amount of, ah, trouble you cause."

"You would be hopeless without me," Milo grinned, dropping the bowl carelessly to shatter on the ground. "It's a basic fact of life."

The Joker stared at Milo blankly.

"What _are_ you doing?" the Joker asked, obviously indicating the destroyed kitchen.

"I thought I'd make _you_ a nice birthday dinner, before I give you your nice gift," Milo grinned. "Just wait."

The smoke detector went off.

"Milo, why don't you get out of the kitchen," Trey suggested as Ace glared at Milo from behind her.

"No," Milo said, stumbling through the broken dishes that littered the floor and catching herself just before she fell by grabbing onto the counter next to the stove.

She steadied herself, kicking away the shards of broken pottery that were scattered around her feet and pulled open the oven door, a cloud of smoke billowed out of the open door. Milo coughed harshly as she breathed in the smoke; she lifted a tea-towel from the counter and flapped it around as the smoke detectors beeped irritatingly in the background. Milo waved the tea-towel harder as the Joker looked at her with obvious amusement on his painted face.

"God that's annoying!" Milo snapped, looking over at the smoke detector that beeped on the ceiling.

She threw the tea-towel down, rooted around in the pocket of her frilled apron that she had tied around the skirt of her red dress and pulled out a small, dull-grey gun. It was colored in the same hue as Milo's own eyes. She pointed it expertly at the smoke detector and shot it out with a deafening blast; she tossed the gun down on the counter and peered inside the gaping hole of the oven. Milo lifted a pot out of the oven and dropped it promptly on the counter as the heat transferred through her glove and burned her hand.

"Shit," Milo swore as she lifted the lid with her other gloved hand, a second, smaller plume of smoke curled out of the pot.

She stared distastefully down into the blackened recesses of the cast iron vessel and wrinkled her nose.

"Disgusting," she groaned and pushed the pot, food and all, into the sink with a resounding clang.

Ace snickered.

"You," Milo hissed, pointing at Ace and gripping the gun that had been lying on the counter. "Clean this up."

"Why?" Ace asked smartly.

"Don't fuck with me," Milo growled, pointing the gun aimlessly in Ace's direction.

Ace put his hands in the air and backed out of the room slowly, his last encounter with Milo was enough to keep him from taking any action. Milo grinned, sweeping her flour dusted hair away from her face with the hilt of the gun.

"Milo, I'll take care of it," Trey said eagerly, moving towards the sink.

"Shut up Trey," Milo growled. "Ace is going to clean this up; I just have to find him." Milo paused, stepping towards the door Ace had exited through. "Ready or not, here I come!"

"Ah, ah," the Joker said. "That's a big no-no, you're coming with me."

"No," Milo insisted, trying to shake the Joker's hand from her wrist. "I'm going to kick Ace's ass. He's going to clean this up."

"No, you're not," the Joker instructed. "You're coming with me."

"I don't have a choice, do I?" Milo asked.

"No, uh, not really," the Joker told Milo.

"Fine," Milo hissed. "Where are you taking me?"

"The question is, uh, where are _you_ taking me?" the Joker murmured, his painted, scarred mouth very close to Milo's ear.

"No where," Milo said, shuddering and moving away from the Joker.

"Oh, but you are, you are taking me to my…surprise that you, ah, promised," the Joker told Milo, his teeth bared in a grin.

"Right," Milo said, "I won't take you there."

"And, uh, why not?" the Joker asked, narrowing his eyes.

"You've got to _find_ it," Milo said, shoving a little map into the Joker's dirty hands and skipping off into the rest of the house, hunting for Ace.

"Yoo-hoo!" Milo called out into the echoic house, her voice wafted back into the kitchen as her footsteps rang up the stairs that led off the main hall, the main hall that had her permanent marker scribbles that she had drawn on the floor.

The Joker grimaced and unfolded the map in his hand, there were four points marked in red pen and a little rhyme up in the left hand corner.

"Foul," the Joker muttered, he looked up at Trey who was quietly cleaning up the counter that Milo had managed to fairly destroy.

The Joker looked up at him and Trey froze.

"Don't do that," the Joker instructed. "Ace will be in here, uh, soon enough."

True to his prediction, there was a crash from the main hall and Ace scurried into the kitchen, followed quickly by a crystal vase, an ashtray and several heavy looking books, Milo stormed in too, hefting a gun in her right hand and a lamp, minus the shade, in her left. She hurled the lamp forcibly at Ace; he flinched and ducked away behind the counter. Milo picked up a heavy looking crock-pot off the counter and threw it over the counter; it smashed violently followed by Ace's sharp yelp and the satisfaction of him standing up, sheltering his face with his arms.

Milo held a kitchen knife firmly in her left hand.

"My, aren't we feeling violent today," the Joker interjected as Ace tried to scoot closer to the sliding door that led into the pool area.

Milo made a face at the Joker before turning back to look at Ace.

"That is a very bad idea," Milo sneered, pointing the knife angrily at Ace.

Ace moved slightly towards the glass door that he had been edging towards before.

Milo drew her arm back and launched the knife, it landed, shivering, in the wall right next to Ace's head, in a flash, Milo was holding another knife in her left hand, poised to throw it.

"I won't miss next time," Milo threatened harshly, "not with this in my right hand."

She waved her gun towards Ace.

"What do you want?" Ace nearly whimpered.

"Clean up the fucking kitchen," Milo hissed, hurling the steak knife at Ace violently, it embedded itself in the wall, on the other side of Ace's head, his face looked petrified.

Milo had another knife in her hand in an instant.

"Do it!" Milo snapped, moving menacingly towards Ace.

"Okay! Okay," Ace relented reluctantly, lifting a pan in his hand.

"Don't you dare pull anything funny!" Milo shouted, pointing the heavy chef's knife at Ace. "Oh, and J, you might want to find that…surprise soon, it has an expiry date."

"When?" the Joker asked, standing briskly and putting the little clue Milo had given him in his breast pocket of his purple jacket.

Milo checked her silver pocket watch.

"Three hours and eight minutes," Milo told the Joker smartly.

The Joker frowned and hurried out of the room, Milo looked over her shoulder at him, keeping her gun trained on Ace as she watched the Joker leave.

"Three hours seven minutes fifty-nine seconds!" Milo shouted after him before she turned back to Ace who looked very nervous.

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The Joker exited the Wayne Manor and took a deep breath of the cool, dark air that surrounded him; Milo was driving him further into the bog of insanity than he was already in.

He was in over his head.

He pulled the little map Milo had shoved into his fist out of his pocket and opened it up to read the rhyme in the corner.

_Tic-Tac-Toe_

_Eenie Meenie Miny Moe_

_Watch them die_

_Watch them grow_

_Tic-Tac-Toe_

_Eenie Meenie Miny Moe_

_What if the Tiger was really very slow?_

_BYOS (Regina Spektor)_

The Joker stared. What the hell was that supposed to mean? Why could Milo never just be straight with him ever?

He squinted at the paper in the dull light that escaped the windows of the house, the little red circles blurred into one, one dot that was centered right over Wayne Tower. The Joker grinned, Milo was clever, too clever, too good, it irritated the Joker, he was the only one who was supposed to be this good.

The Joker leapt into his new white van, a replacement for the one Milo had blown up, the one she had used to get him caught. A sour taste filled the Joker's mouth. He still hadn't forgiven Milo for making him apologizing, but he would, eventually, maybe once she was dead, or maybe before.

Wayne Tower slid into view; the Joker parked on the street adjacent to Wayne Tower, pulled a hat on, hiding his painted face, crossed the road and stared at the darkened windows of the Wayne Tower. Was the surprise here? Or was this merely another clue to attain the surprise? What if there was no surprise at all?

The Joker read the rhyme again.

_Watch them die_

_Watch them grow_

The Joker scanned the surroundings and his eyes fell on a dead oak tree that sat at the corner of the building, next to that was a small seedling.

_Watch them die_

_Watch them grow_

The Joker grinned and stumbled his way through the well manicured gardens until he was standing right up against the pair of trees. A bit of paper hung in the dead tree, rustling against the brown leaves in the slow, warm breeze.

He had solved the first part of the rhyme.

He unfolded the paper with his gloved hands and scanned it, there was an address, was it really that simple? It must be.

The Joker retreated, back across the street to his van, checking the dashboard clock as he raced down the streets, heading back into the outskirts of Gotham, he had less than an hour left to find this thing that was expiring.

He stepped out of the van at the address indicated on the slip of paper.

It was an abandoned, dirt lot. There was a sign out front, just before the gate.

_Did you BYOS?_

The Joker frowned, what did BYOS mean? And what did it have to do with this? Who was Regina Spektor?

He checked the dashboard clock again, he didn't have time to find out what BYOS meant, he would have to wing it once he figured it out. The Joker stormed past the sign and into the dark lot, the van's bright headlights did little to push away the darkness. The Joker detected something moving in the far corner of the lot, he set off towards it at a quick pace, hands flexing over his pockets, ready to dive in and defend himself.

He took four more steps and the figure stopped moving, it faced the Joker and the madman caught sight of glinting white teeth in the darkness.

Milo.

"Very good!" she applauded genially. "Did you BYOS?"

"What, uh, in the name of madness does that, ah, mean?" the Joker asked angrily.

"You've only got thirteen minutes left," Milo said, checking her pocket watch. "Did you or did you not BYOS?"

"I did not!" the Joker nearly shouted.

"That's too bad," Milo pouted with false sympathy. "I brought mine."

Milo held up a small, foldable shovel.

"BYOS?" the Joker asked, sorting out the problem in his mind. "Bring your own shovel?"

"And the prize goes to Mr. J," Milo grinned, tossing the shovel at the Joker.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" the Joker asked.

"X marks the spot," Milo said, pointing with a sharp finger at the dirt before her.

An X was scratched into the reddish dirt that was before the two criminals.

"And I am supposed to…?" the Joker asked.

"Dig," Milo said, rolling her eyes.

The Joker shrugged out of his jacket and rolled up his sleeves, taking the shovel in both hands.

"Twelve minutes," Milo reminded the Joker.

The Joker growled and began to dig, tossing the red dirt in a pile behind him, picking up speed every time Milo informed him of how much longer he had before the surprise would expire, Milo had just told him that he had two minutes left when his shovel struck something very solid.

Very, very solid.

The Joker leant down and wiped the dirt off, revealing the face of a plexi-glass box.

"Happy birthday," Milo grinned as the Joker looked down into the face of Gotham's Prince, Bruce Wayne.

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**Wowza! What a development! Hope you liked it! I think I'm getting this story under my control again. Remember to review or there will not be any good chapters. Milo will die if I don't get any more reviews. Review, review, review.**


	17. Chapter 17: Lovers Quarrel

**Hello my lovely readers! I've gotten some great, great reviews lately. Really great constructive criticism, thanks so much for it. I'm going to try really, really hard to make this one great! I hope it is, for your sake and my own. And about the reviews, I love getting the longer ones, but the ones that are really long are quite distracting, I have a short attention span and I lose interest and focus on the super long reviews after the first paragraph. Sorry, I'm like a goldfish, attention span, 13 seconds. Thanks and on with the show.**

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Bruce Wayne looked up through the plexi-glass that hovered above his head; the dirt was slowly scraping away from the clear box he was hunched in.

The dirt cleared enough for him to see out properly, a painted face stared back at him.

He kicked violently at the plexi-glass but it didn't give beneath his flailing feet, the Joker's macabre grin widened. Bruce Wayne looked around the Joker's green-blonde hair into a second face.

Milo.

Her lips were bloodied and her fingernails were caked with reddish dirt, but her smile was unsure, her hands trembled and her eyes were narrowed. She looked at Bruce with different eyes. They weren't maniacal, they weren't angry, they weren't deluded, they were confused, they were hurt, they weren't so sure as they always were and, Bruce suspected, always had been.

The Joker turned to Milo, his mouth moving in soundless words, he gestured wildly towards Milo, grin in place, paint cracking at the corner of his lips. Bruce's eyes followed their movements carefully, waiting.

He watched Milo's uncertain, bloody lips move in response to the Joker's words, her hands fluttered uncertainly near her jacket pockets, Bruce couldn't help but wonder what was tucked in there. The Joker said something else, in a sharper tone, Milo stumbled back, her shoe getting buried in a mound of red dirt, the Joker advanced on her, his face menacing.

Bruce really wished he could hear them properly, he wished he wasn't in this situation at all. The Joker's fists clenched and he growled through his teeth, Milo frowned and her mouth gaped open, open, shut, open, shut, the Joker's mouth twitched upwards at the corner and he snatched something out of Milo's hands.

She reached for the thing the Joker had taken from her, pushing her hand sharply against the Joker's painted face and scrabbling at his fisted hands with her other hand, he laughed and shoved her back, she fell heavily on her back, dirt dusting her hair. The Joker grinned; throwing his head back in laughter, his hands opened slightly and Bruce caught a glimpse of glinting metal in his hands.

Keys.

Bruce looked down at the end of his plexi-glass prison, there was a metal lock fixed near his feet, he watched as the Joker moved slowly towards the lock, he watched as Milo sat up and dusted herself off, she inspected a bloody scrape on her elbow, rubbed it clean and stood up slowly behind the Joker. Her elbows were scraped, her lips were bloody and her hands raw on their palms, she rubbed her scuffed palms together anxiously, shifting her weight from her left leg to her right, silhouetted from behind in the failing light.

Bruce watched as the Joker fiddled with the keys at the foot of the plexi-glass container, Bruce looked to the fan that was blowing air into his tiny box, it was slowing. Bruce's eyes turned back to Milo, she was biting her bloody lip and turning a small, dull-grey gun over between her scuffed fingers, a furrow pulling her eyebrows together over the bridge of her nose.

The keys that the Joker was fiddling with clicked violently into place and the lock snapped open. Bruce took a deep breath, it was now or never, he placed his feet firmly on the plexi-glass that separated him from the Joker, braced his back against the other side of the clear prison and pushed upwards with all his might.

The Joker's mouth formed a comical 'O' before he was shot backwards through the air, surprised expression immediately morphing into angry and maniacal as he landed harshly on his back on the dusty red dirt of the abandoned lot the three opposites stood on.

Bruce leapt out of the glass casket he had been encased in for the last eight hours, he felt his head spin as the blood rushed down his body, his fingers and toes felt tingly, spots threatened to encroach on his already fuzzy vision. Milo let out a loud, involuntary squeak and her hands were wrapped around her gun quicker than Bruce could follow, her index finger shaking violently over the trigger.

She swung the gun around and sighted it on Bruce, her feet planted firmly, shoulder width apart, in the red dirt that swirled around her sneakers, settling on the black canvas. Bruce watched the Joker stand up, dusting his long jacket off and walk slowly towards Milo and Bruce, a confident grin plastered on his eerie painted face and his shoulders hunched for dramatic effect. Bruce fought down panic.

He could barely make out Milo's dark form in the quickly fading light, her face and hands shining like beacons, the dark circles under her eyes paired with her shadowed eyes gave her face a skull-like appearance, leering out of her pale face beneath the moon. Bruce watched her hands shake over the trigger, he didn't understand, Milo, the unshakeable woman, the deranged female with the notorious trigger finger, was hesitating.

Bruce's eyes flitted between Milo and the Joker, the leering mad-man getting slowly closer as Milo held him in his place. Bruce had to make a decision, he had to find a way out or he had to fight. His eyes flicked back to Milo and her shaking limbs, she tipped her head back slightly, throwing her eyes and face into full view under the half-moon. Bruce watched silver drops roll down her cheeks; it took a moment for him to realize that they were tears.

Milo took her fingers away from the trigger, still holding the gun towards Bruce, but the imminent threat was gone, Bruce watched Milo swallow, her throat shining in the dull moonlight, a tear slipped down her neck, she turned her face back down, casting shadows across her tear-stained face.

Metal glinted in the half-light as Milo brought the back of her gun-wielding hand to her face and wiped tears from her cheeks, Bruce stood stock still for a moment, he heard Milo take a long, shuddering breath, watched the Joker's face shift back into shock and turned on his heel, sprinting out of the abandoned lot, dust plumes rising in the turbulence he left behind him.

The Joker stopped instantly as soon as Bruce took his leave, jaw slack, eyes steely. Milo shrunk down inside her black sweater, shoulders hunched, rubbing at her eyes with the heels of her hands, gun dangling from her thumb.

"Hmmm," the Joker hummed in a dangerously silky voice. "It looks like old Batty-Boy's disappeared into the night. I wonder whose fault that was."

Milo flinched as the Joker grabbed onto her shoulder, his grease-stained fingers digging painfully into her bony body.

"Answer me," the Joker whispered into Milo's ear, his acrid breath blowing her hair back.

She bit her lip as his fingers squeezed her shoulder even tighter, she could feel him reaching into his pocket behind her.

"Don't," she shouted, turning on the spot to face him, gun pressed firmly against his chest.

"Well, well, well," the Joker chuckled. "You've got some fight in you, I like that."

Milo shifted, they were very close to each other, face to face, literally, their noses almost touched and most of their bodies were against each other, neither one giving an inch of surrender.

"Damn straight-," Milo growled, her words getting lost in the Joker's lips as he pressed his painted mouth to hers.

Milo's eyes widened and closed gently, letting herself fall into the kiss and remember what she had been so long ago, _before_, before everything, when her life had been simple, when she had been nothing but a hopeless romantic, when she had the leisure to dream.

The Joker wasn't as tender or reminiscent as Milo, he bit down sharply on her lip, hands on her hips, Milo let her hand holding her gun slip to her side.

Mistake, she realized as a ripping pain tore through her stomach, she brought her weaponless hand up to her stomach, pressing it to her sweater where a huge rip had been drawn through the fabric. Blood seeped through the dark cloth, dripping down Milo's fingers, over the back of her hand and running, warm and thick, down her arm. As the Joker removed the gun from Milo's shaking hand, her fingers tightened around the trigger, sending a bullet through the Joker's dirty hand.

He swore profanely and knocked Milo to the ground with his elbow, she moaned as another wave of pain ripped her open and left her prone in the dust surrounding Bruce's empty prison.

"You shouldn't have done that," the Joker hissed, getting down on his hands and knees next to Milo, hands getting stained from the mixture of her blood and the dirt that covered the ground. "You screwed up dollface, now you pay the price."

Milo felt the butt of her own gun slam into her skull, and then she felt darkness over take her, it was like she was running from it but she wasn't fast enough, eventually she fell to it, eventually she left the real world and entered her own.

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_A happy family sat around their little wooden table, laughing and joking, smiling as they ate. There was a happy looking mother looking adoringly at her happy husband who was the happy father of their two happy children who squirmed happily in the wooden chairs that matched their wooden table._

_Fuck, Milo thought as she looked in through the polished window, fuck me, fuck this, why wasn't she like this?_

_The woman and her two children turned to face Milo._

_Her face was their face, over and over again._

_Bloody but hers._

_The man turned to face Milo from through the window._

_His face was gone, blank, empty, featureless. _

Milo sat up from her make-shift bed, panting heavily, feeling cold sweat roll down her limbs and across her forehead, she was shaking and felt her stomach heave. She leant over in the darkness and purged herself clean.

Three times.

Milo wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, spitting fervently off the side of her couch that served as a bed for her when she slept at the Joker's new lair, they had evacuated the Wayne Manor.

Milo tried to sit up, a searing pain ripped her side open and she fought back a scream as she curled her body up beneath the thin sheet she was wrapped in, trembling, whimpers escaping her lips. She pressed her hand gently to the source of the pain and brought it to eye level. Her fingers were covered in dried blood; she winced and forced her body to uncurl itself. She took a deep breath and steeled herself.

She pulled her body into a sitting position, emitting a strangled mewl that forced its way through her lips, she bit her lip but quickly withdrew her teeth, remembering how the Joker had bitten her lip. She didn't need to think about that right now, she didn't want that strange, joyous, painful feeling to bubble up inside her, she didn't want to think or feel right now, she just wanted to be the wall she had built up.

White teeth gritted together behind Milo's bleeding lips as she swung her legs off the bed, setting her feet gingerly on the cold floor, before she could stop herself, she shoved her body off the bed with her arms, her side letting out a shriek of pain in protest to her motion. She stumbled a few steps forwards before halting and gagging, doubled over in pain. She forced herself another step towards what she assumed was the bathroom, her foot caught on something and she collapsed to the floor, her cheek slamming harshly onto the cement floor.

Milo shut her eyes heavily and fisted her hands, fighting back the urge to vomit or scream.

Flesh connected with flesh as she extended her leg out slightly, her foot pressed against a stirring figure. She pulled herself up into a parody of a sitting motion and backed herself into a corner, an audible hiss pushing itself out of her mouth. The figure laying on the floor stirred, drawing itself up to stand and lumbering over to where Milo sat silently and motionless in the corner of the room.

Milo sucked in a breath as she scrabbled for her pockets for her weapons that were always there, she wasn't wearing her sweater. The figure advanced slowly on Milo, she pushed her spine further against the wall, squinting in the darkness, her fingers tightened into tough fists.

The figure was right in front of Milo now, looking around, apparently not seeing her. Milo clenched her bone-white teeth and tightened her lips over them as she tensed herself to make her escape.

Milo snapped her leg out, catching the figure square in the stomach; it doubled over and groaned, Milo took that opportunity to scuttle sideways, wincing in pain, towards the door. She didn't get far, the figure hobbled over, getting ahead of Milo quickly and pinning her to the concrete floor with a strong hand, the other hand placing itself over her mouth.

Milo squirmed but gave up once she felt blood seeping through her thin tank top and a searing pain run through her abdomen. She felt heavy breathing next to her ear as she lay quietly on the floor.

"Fuck Milo, that hurt," a deep voice whispered.

"Trey?" Milo asked in disbelief.

"Yeah, who the hell else would be stupid enough to stay up here with you," the henchman growled, pulling Milo gently to her feet.

"Why _are_ you here?" Milo questioned the dark haired man as he pulled her carefully towards the bathroom door, a tiny light pulsed beyond.

"The Joker's pissed at you," Trey sighed, "I'm here for this, to make sure you don't freak out and make him angrier at you. You should stay here for a whi- why aren't you threatening me?"

Milo blinked slowly at his sudden change of topic.

"I-I, what?" Milo stuttered.

"Never mind, you don't have to answer that, forget I said anything," Trey mumbled.

Milo winced and put her hand to her side as she hobbled closer to the bathroom, the outline was shining with light, and it was almost within reach. Trey put his hand gently on the knob and turned it slightly, pushing the door inwards.

The scent of blood and ammonia curled up Milo's nostrils and stung the inside of her nose, she sneezed and gagged simultaneously.

"I haven't gotten a chance to clean up since I patched you up," Trey explained apologetically.

Milo averted her eyes from the pile of bloody bandages that were stacked messily in the bathtub and poorly concealed with the shower curtain that wasn't fully drawn and faced the mirror bravely. She might as well have looked at the bandages; she retched into the sink anyway.

Trey grimaced and turned the tap on, rinsing the vomit down the sink. Milo looked slowly back into the mirror, careful not to startle herself again. She simply stared for a moment, grey eyes meeting their twins, and then she leaned in, inspecting her face more closely, her eyes burning.

Bruises and dried blood were abundant all across her face, her lower lip was bloodied and fat, several large cuts crossed her forehead and her left eye was black and purple. She frowned as she felt through her hair, abrasions and scabs pock-marked her scalp. Milo pulled her face back away from the mirror, fighting the tears that moistened her eyes, hiding them from Trey.

Hiding her humanity.

She looked down at her stomach, a line of blood seeped through her white tank-top; she rolled the edge of the fabric up and tucked it into her bra, leaving her hands free to inspect her wound. She unwound the bandages that wrapped around her torso gently, swathes of white falling away in her hands until her bare skin was exposed.

The first thing that struck Milo about the large gash was the amount of dried blood that was caked over the messy stitches; the sheer size of the cut astounded her. The line of stitches ran from just below her sternum, down across to her right hip, stopping abruptly above her sleep shorts.

It never occurred to her that someone had to change her into these new clothes.

"Ouch," Milo whispered, trailing her fingers over the stitches, her fingers red from the oozing blood.

"Mmhm," Trey agreed, "you're just lucky it didn't go too deep. I'm gonna clean it up a bit."

"Or unlucky," Milo muttered bitterly.

"You don't believe in luck or karma or any of that crap?" Trey asked gently, removing Milo's fingers from her wound as she stared straight-faced over his shoulder and back into the mirror.

"Life's a bitch and then you die," Milo sneered, her lip curling down.

"That's pretty cynical, even for you," Trey observed, dampening a washcloth in the sink behind him.

"I've earned the right to be cynical," Milo hissed at the water from the washcloth collided with her wound, washing the dried blood away in a swirl of pinkish brown.

"How so?" Trey continued, dabbing carefully at the wound across Milo's ribs, her arms balanced on her head, stretching her skin across her bones.

"My life's been one big mistake after another," Milo sighed through gritted teeth, eyes still focused on the mirror, "it's just bad luck that I'm still alive."

"One big mess then?" Trey asked as he dried Milo's skin.

"Something like that," Milo replied, closing her eyes and letting Trey wrap her wound with fresh bandages.

Trey pinned the bandages carefully and Milo let the hem of her tank-top fall back down to rest at the top of her shorts.

"Are you okay?" Trey questioned, trying to get Milo to look him in the eyes.

"Why are you even here?" Milo snarled cynically, casing her eyes over Trey's shoulders "why do you care?"

"I-," Trey began.

"I don't care," Milo snapped, her voice rising in pitch.

"Milo," Trey hissed, "keep your voice down. _He_'ll hear you!"

"What makes you think I care?" Milo practically shouted. "I'm past caring; I just want what I can't have!"

The sound of footsteps thundered down the hallway.

"Get back to bed, I'll tell him you were having delusions," Trey hissed into Milo's ear, grasping her upper arm with his strong hand.

"No," Milo retorted miserably. "Let him kill me, I don't care."

"Have you ever considered that maybe someone else cares?" Trey shouted.

The door slammed open and the Joker stood there, in all his painted, grinning glory.

"Having a lovers quarrel are we?" he snickered, his lips pulling up on one side, gloved hands flexing at his sides.

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**Wow, I definitely didn't expect it to go like that! I have zero control over this story, again. Well, I hope you all liked it, review please, not too long, not too short. Sorry I'm so demanding, goldfish aren't this demanding, I bet you wished that a goldfish was writing this story. I love you all, thanks for reading!**


	18. Chapter 18: ByeBye Milo

**It's been forever since I've written, sorry about that, I've been busy. Well, here is part 18 at last. I really hope you like it, I'm not sure if I like it yet since I haven't written it. Keep reading, keep writing and keep up the great reviews! Thanks and remember that reviews are key!**

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Milo whirled to face the Joker, a knife glittered in his gloved hand.

"You, are _very_ loud," the Joker grinned. "Some of us were trying to think in solitude and quiet, you can see how your screaming might have, uh, disturbed us."

"She's confused," Trey put in quickly, placing himself slightly in front of Milo's shaking figure. "She'll be quiet."

"Shut up Trey!" Milo shouted, "I'm not confused, I'm not going to be quiet so stop lying! Stop telling me what to do! Just stop!"

"Stop?" the Joker hissed, "I can't stop. Not after you pulled that little stunt with Batty-Boy. No, no, no, I can't stop now. I _have_ to keep going."

"Keep going?" Milo asked, Trey stepped back from her as the Joker stepped forwards.

"Not so noble are you Trey?" the Joker sneered.

Trey looked down at his shoes.

"Answer. My. Question." Milo said, staring up at the Joker defiantly, small fists trembling by her sides.

The Joker grinned.

"Answer me damn it!" Milo barked.

"Do you remember the night you let Batty-Boy get away?" the Joker asked, his voice soft, but menacing.

Milo frowned, her eyebrows contracting over the bridge of her nose, she remembered the night, but most of her memories were clouded with pain. All except one, the one where her lips met the Joker's and she had allowed herself to become vulnerable, Milo pushed it away in her mind, turning her head slightly.

"You _do_ remember," the Joker chuckled. "You don't want to though, no, no you don't. You _know_ it makes you look…_**weak**_!"

Milo flinched visibly.

"You don't think you're weak, do you, Milo?" the Joker pushed. "But that's only what you think, isn't it? Deep down you _know_ you're weak. Poor baby Milo, too afraid to admit to herself what she really is."

The Joker laughed, tilting his head back, letting the maniacal sound ring out in the enclosed space, echoing off the porcelain fixtures in the small bathroom. Milo covered her ears meekly, staring down at the floor as Trey looked between the two, thoroughly confused.

The Joker took another step towards Milo, this time; she took a step back, her arm colliding gently with the cool white sink behind her.

"Have you given up, Milo?" the Joker asked. "Have you had _enough_?"

Trey didn't understand, why would Milo let the Joker speak to her this way, she didn't let anyone speak to her this way, she would never let anything go wrong in her plans. What had happened that night? Trey wondered, whatever happened had changed Milo, and it was scaring him.

"Yes," Milo whispered, her face still tilted towards the floor.

"I'm sorry," the Joker giggled. "I couldn't hear you, what was that?"

"Yes, Joker, I've had enough," Milo said, louder this time. "I'm done."

"What?" Trey shouted. "What's wrong with you Milo? You can't give up! It doesn't work that way."

"Shut up Trey," Milo growled, "decent folks are trying to sleep."

"No," Trey yelled, his voice rising in pitch. "I don't get it! I don't get you! Why-."

"Listen to the lady," the Joker grinned. "Decent folks _are_ trying to sleep."

Trey shut his mouth abruptly, mid-sentence.

"That's better," the Joker cooed. "Now, Milo, you're done with this, you don't want to do what you used to do, right? Right. So now I have to figure out what to do with you."

"Just let me go," Milo sighed wearily, "I'll make a life for myself, I won't tell anyone about this. Ever."

"Tsk, tsk, tsk," the Joker hummed, "you know I can't risk that, Milo. I'll have to find something else to do with you. I can't let you go, but since you're utterly useless to me, you can't stay here. Oh, I know what to do. Ask me what I'm going to do."

"I-I," Milo stuttered.

"Ask me!" the Joker growled.

"What are you going to do, Joker?" Milo asked, already knowing what he would say.

"I'm going to have to kill you," the Joker said. "And then you won't cause anymore trouble. Ever."

"Boss…" Trey said in a warning tone.

"No, Trey, I won't spare her, you stupid love-sick puppy," the Joker smiled, pulling a gun out of his coat. "Now I would use a knife, but, I have _matters_ to attend to and this is just so much quicker."

The Joker leveled the gun at Milo's face, pointing it steadily at her.

"What was it you said to Allison before you killed her?" the Joker asked.

Milo stared down at the floor.

"Oh yes, you said, bye-bye Allison," the Joker grinned. "Bye-bye Milo."

He pulled the trigger, gunshot ringing out in the bathroom, blood spilling and pooling on the floor.

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**Aha, finally, one more chapter and an idea for the next. I'm sorry this one was so short, it was just to get me writing again, I got some great ideas from Shadow HeHaHo and they will come into play eventually. Not just yet though. Rate and message and review or I will not post the next chapter. Ever. Enjoy!**


	19. Chapter 19: You Can Get Up Now

**Finally, I'm writing again, it's been a very long time. I really hope you liked the last chapter and I really hope you like this one. Well, enjoy.**

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The Joker pointed his gun at Milo, her face turned down to the ground, he pulled the trigger.

"No!" Trey shouted, moving in front of Milo.

Trey crumpled to the ground before Milo, blood pouring out of a wound in his chest, he lay at Milo's feet, bleeding onto the floor and gasping for breath. Milo's jaw dropped and she knelt beside Trey, pressing her palm to Trey's wound, the Joker pointed his gun at Milo, smiling.

Trey's breath's came in short bursts, rasping and spitting out blood, he shuddered, blood spurting out of the holes in his chest.

"I-I," he stuttered, words not forming properly in his mouth.

"You're going to be okay," Milo promised, sliding a bandage under her hand and pressing down harder, aware of the instrument of death that the Joker had pointed at her as he watched her curiously.

"No, he's not," the Joker grinned.

"Don't listen to him," Milo breathed into Trey's ear. "You'll be fine, I swear!"

"Don't-don't, ah, lie," Trey spat out, his breathing becoming more labored as blood soaked through the cloth Milo was pressing to his chest and spilled over her hand. "I'm n-not going to, _uhn_, be okay. I lo-ove you, Milo."

Milo took her hand off Trey's chest in surprise, she could barely remember the last time someone said that to her. Trey shuddered in her arms and lay still, his eyes clouding slightly.

Milo frowned, a tear slipping down her cheek, she placed her fingers over Trey's eyelids and slid them shut, she wiped her hands off on her soft cotton shorts and stood up slowly, hands in the air.

"Why did you kill him?" Milo asked.

"I didn't kill anyone," the Joker snickered, the left side of his lips pulling up. "It was you who killed him."

Milo stopped and vomited thoroughly, spattering the Joker's shoes with partially digested food and bile.

The Joker shook off his feet distastefully.

"And now I just have you left to deal with," the Joker said, his lips turned down now.

"No," Milo said. "You don't."

"And what is that supposed to mean?" the Joker asked, one eyebrow raised.

"It means that I'm done with this sentimentality crap," Milo growled, she grasped at something behind her and hurled it at the Joker.

The Joker swatted the shard of glass away.

"Now, now, now, that wasn't very nice, Milo," the Joker said. "But it is nice to see that you've found yourself again, maybe you'll think twice next time you feel like going straight, I find that people die, a lot, when that happens."

"I see what you mean," Milo said dryly. "But I'm done doing your dirty work for you, I'm just as good as you are, you _know_ that. I want to be your _partner_, not your crone."

"What kind of _partner_, Milo?" the Joker asked with a twisted smile and a twitch.

Milo looked up at the Joker through her eyelashes, eyes narrowed and hands clenched, her lips were bleeding again, she blinked slowly three times before she lunged past the Joker, slamming the door behind her.

"Whatever kind of _partner_ you want me to be?" Milo yelled from the outside of the door.

"You're funny Milo," the Joker laughed, ear and shoulder to the door. "_Very_ funny."

"I'm glad I could make you _laugh_," Milo grinned, releasing the door, the Joker strode through agitatedly moments later.

Milo stepped forwards, placing her fingers over the Joker's gloved hand carrying the gun.

"You're not going to knife me again, are you?" she asked coyly.

"I'll think about that," the Joker shrugged.

Milo stood on her toes, reaching up and kissing the Joker on the mouth, her hand still on his, keeping the gun pointed away from her as she bit the Joker's lip gently. The Joker was stiff for a moment, before he kissed Milo back, violent but not painfully so.

Milo pulled away and the Joker looked slightly disoriented as he tried to regain his composure.

"I remember the night Batman got away," Milo whispered into the Joker's ear through his stringy blonde-green hair. "That was a good night, does that answer your questions?"

"It, uh, sure does," the Joker said, pulling away.

His hand brushed Milo's stomach, she winced. The Joker reached out for her, she glared at him and backed away, but he caught the hem of her tank-top between his gloved fingers and yanked it upwards, revealing the messy stitches and scar tissue forming on Milo's body.

"Oops," he shrugged, letting Milo's top fall back down to cover her injury and leaving the room.

"I'll always hate you a little for what you did to Trey," Milo said, her words filling the silent room.

"A little hate is good," the Joker shrugged, "so is a little fight, be ready to leave early tomorrow morning to retrieve Batty-Boy, _partner_."

The Joker exited the room and flicked off the light leaving Milo standing in the dark, she had a feeling that she'd be standing in the dark, proverbially, of course, for a very long time.

Milo turned back to the bathroom, light still spilling from the door, blood spilling out of the doorway as well, bright red. Milo sighed, and re-entered the bathroom, staring at Trey's still body.

"You can get up now Trey," she said, shaking him gently. "He's gone and we have stuff to do."

Trey's eyes popped open, a jaunty grin on his face.

"Pretty convincing, wasn't I?" he asked.

"There's no time to gloat right now," Milo told Trey, sliding the window open as Trey stood up behind her. "You have to 'disappear' right now."

Trey walked over to the window, he was about to climb out of it when he turned back to Milo.

"I'll see you again, right?" he asked anxiously.

"Yes, Trey, you'll see me again," Milo assured him. "I have a plan," Milo pulled her pocket watch out of her bra, "and we are right on schedule now, go on Trey, I promise I'll be there."

"Okay," Trey said, leaning down and kissing Milo gently, wiping the blood off her lips with his sleeve.

He crawled carefully out the window onto the fire escape and out into the night, Milo slid the window shut behind him and mopped up the coppery-smelling blood that was left behind on the bathroom floor.

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**Okay, so this one's a little longer than the last one, I'm trying to work them up to be as long as I used to write them, although a lot of that was made up of these memos, oh well. Anyway, weirdness right? Trey's alive. Huh, who'd have thought. Review please! Hope you liked it.**


	20. Chapter 20: You Need A Better Costume

**It has been about a billion years since I updated, I still love this story but have been entirely uninspired lately and so here, without further ado, is the newest chapter of the story.**

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The Joker stared at Milo, a black pencil skirt hugging her legs, a billowy, white blouse spilling out over her chest and a pair of glasses perched primly on her nose.

"You need a better costume," he smirked.

"You need to mind your own damn business," Milo snapped back, perching her hands on her hips. "I don't need fancy makeup to kill people."

The Joker grimaced at her comment.

"And," Milo continued. "I am _not _and will _never_ wear one of those idiotic clown masks that every other one of your minions wears."

"You're in luck," the Joker growled, stepping closer to Milo, taking her hands in his, and inspecting the blood that stained beneath her nails. "We're going into this alone; you won't have to see any of those masks."

Milo drew her hand back from the Joker, their dysfunctional relationship still confused her a little, she rubbed her hands together in a washing motion before checking her pocket watch.

"It's show time," Milo hissed. "_Partner_."

"Don't you, _ah_, forget that," the Joker threatened, opening the door of the van and gesturing with a mock bow for Milo to get in.

Milo rolled her gunmetal grey eyes and stepped into the van, turning on the heat and putting her hands close to the vent where hot air blasted out into the gutted interior of the van. The Joker climbed in the driver's side, slamming the door behind him and gunning the engine until it roared, white smoke spewing from beneath the tires.

Milo checked her pocket watch. "We're late."

"Haven't you ever, ah, heard of being fashionably late?" the Joker laughed as the van careened around a corner and rolled to a stop.

Milo's head snapped forwards on her neck, she rubbed her neck, swearing under her breath, Milo felt the smooth texture of leather on her skin, she turned to look through hooded eyes at the sadistic man sitting next to her. The Joker ran his fingers along Milo's skin without making eye contact; Milo closed her eyes, relishing the strange touch. She heard the Joker's laugh and her eyes snapped open, he was holding a knife to Milo's skin, nicking it gently and tucking it away. Milo narrowed her eyes at the Joker and slapped him across the face, not gently at all, his face paint smearing across her palm. The Joker moved his jaw around, feeling at his face with his own gloved hand.

Milo hopped out of the van as the Joker's confusion turned to anger, standing on the street, poised to run, the Joker glared at Milo, shutting the door she had left open. He drove off leaving Milo standing in the dark.

"Get the fuck back here!" Milo yelled after him.

The white van did not reappear, Milo sneered distastefully, turning the corner past the dismal looking street lamp that shone down from above. She squinted up at it and knelt down, leaning her back against the cold metal post, heaving a sigh, she pulled a small pistol out of the waistband of her skirt and fiddled with it, shooting out the light of the streetlamp across the road.

A dark figure billowed towards her. Milo leaned her head back against the metal pole as the figure took proper shape. Her eyes widened and she scrambled to her feet, standing on the opposite side of the lamp pole.

"How nice of you to come Mr. Bat," she said smugly. "But our meeting has been called off; the other party has neglected to show up."

Milo brushed her hair back from her face, smiling up at the tall, silent man before her, her dry hands clutching the cold metal lamp post before her. She rubbed her nose with one hand.

"You're looking better," Batman said. "Good enough to go to Arkham."

Milo made a scoffing sound in her throat. "I don't think the Joker would like that," she observed cordially. "After all, I am his _pet_."

"It looked like he left you out here, he can't care too much," Batman rasped.

"You were watching me?" Milo asked in mock surprise, her hand flying to her chest. "I'm flattered, but I do have another appointment," she stopped to check her watch, "right about now, so I must dash, we'll have to reschedule."

"We won't be doing any rescheduling," Batman smirked. "You'd better cancel that appointment."

"I can't do that," Milo grinned, dashing into the alley behind her, the cloaked figure of Batman close on her heels.

He gained on her and she stumbled and fell, she caught herself and tried to scramble to her feet but the Batman's gloves had already closed around her wrists.

"You know," she said smartly. "This on and off romance really has got to stop Mr. Bat."

A chuckle emerged from the shadows. "It really should," the Joker snickered. "Milo's taken."

"Oops," Milo grinned wickedly, a bead of blood glistening on her lips. "I think someone's found out about our little trysts."

She threw her head back and laughed.

The Joker advanced on Batman in the dark, his make-up smudged, his tongue flicked out to moisten his painted lips, Batman released Milo and rushed at the Joker. As the two engaged in combat, Milo slipped out of the alley, her grey eyes glowing in the darkness as she disappeared without a sound, listening to the Joker laughing as he fought Batman. He'd be mad she didn't stay, but where she was going would be worth it.

Milo jimmied the door of a black suburban open and hotwired it, feeling the powerful engine roar to life as she pressed her foot to the gas and drove very carefully through the city to the hotel district. She parked the car, not bothering to put money in the meter; she wouldn't be coming back to it anyhow. She slid into the back door of a seedy looking motel, loose women crowded in the back room, reapplying their makeup and fixing their hair, Milo walked through them, pushing their bodies away from her as she stormed through. She strode through a second back room, full of men playing poker, women watching over their shoulders, the observers stepped out of Milo's way as quickly as possible with polite nods and down turned faces.

Milo smiled in satisfaction as she skipped up the back stairs, terrifying the maids as she passed. She halted at the second floor, walking into the main hall, a man and a women were kissing in the hall, they stopped abruptly as Milo walked past, scurrying into their motel room, fumbling with the key in the lock. Milo knocked carefully on a bright wood door, brass numbers labeling it 242. The door opened slowly and Trey peered out. He looked startled and shut the door, unchaining it quickly and ripped the door open, pulling Milo in and shutting the door behind her.

Trey instantly pulled Milo to him and kissed her, she kissed back, standing on her toes and wrapping her arms around Trey's neck, tangling her fingers in his messy hair. She kissed him passionately, her back pressed to the wall as he ran his hands up and down her body desperately, fingers finding the edge of her blouse and pulling it over her head, her skirt pulled down moments later. Milo fumbled with the buttons of Trey's shirt, giving up at last and simply ripping the flimsy fabric and fumbling with his belt buckle, her lips still pressed to his as they made their way, most of their clothes lying by the door, to the bed.

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**Sorry it's kind of short and pointless, but it's something right? I hope y'all like it. I want ten messages or reviews before I post the next chapter which I have written! Rate, message and review! Thanks for reading. **


	21. Chapter 21: End of The Line

**I have not written in a long time and now I just cannot stop! It's weird. Anyway, I hope the plot isn't slowing down or starting to suck. I'd love some reviews! Does no one read my story anymore, or what? Hope you all like this chapter. **

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Milo woke up, an arm wrapped around her bare waist; she looked over at Trey, his face peaceful and calm, Milo wrinkled her nose, she groped blindly on the night table for the smooth metal of her pocket watch. It was not there. Milo opened her eyes, searching for the glint of the little silver watch. She still could not find it.

Milo swung her legs out of the bed, planting her feet on the floor and yanking the sheets around her, Trey rolled off the bed on the other side as Milo stood, searching the floor for her watch. Trey stood up groggily.

"What's wrong Milo?" Trey asked, concerned.

"Where the hell is my watch, Trey?" Milo growled, ripping open the drawer of the bedside table and dumping its contents onto the dirty floor.

"I-I don't know," Trey stammered, standing exposed in just his boxers.

Milo threw the drawer on the carpet forcibly, its sides breaking open and scattering over the floor. "Tell me where the watch is damnit!" She clenched her fists and glared at Trey.

"I don't know where your watch is!" Trey exclaimed.

Milo groped under the bed, pulling out her gun and pushing a pair of bright bullets into their respective slots, pushing it back together and pointing the weapon at Trey. Trey's hands flew up, making soothing motions.

"Where is it?" Milo shouted. "Find it!"

"I don't know right now," Trey murmured soothingly. "But I'll find it."

"Oh, don't patronize me!" Milo hissed, advancing on Trey. "Tell me what you did with it!"

"I didn't take it," Trey yelled. "I didn't!"

Milo kicked over the floor lamp, its shade crumpling against the dingy carpet.

"Well then look!" Milo ordered, shoving the bed into Trey's knees.

"I'm looking," Trey replied, edging out from behind the bed and rummaging around the room.

"Well?" Milo asked expectantly minutes later.

"It's not here," Trey said. "but-."

"Find it!" Milo screamed, waving her gun.

Trey tried to calm Milo, tried to reason with her, but she ignored him, getting angrier and angrier. Her voice had just risen to a new level when the door slammed open. Milo and Trey whipped around, staring at the man who had just burst in on their quarrel. A larger man with a well tailored suit and graying hair smirked at them. Two other men followed him in, pointing heavy guns at Trey and Milo.

"Sorry to interrupt," the grey haired man said. "But I've got a delivery to make."

"Sal?" Trey asked in disbelief, pulling a shirt over his head as Milo stood, motionless and dumbstruck, staring at the mafia men who had walked in.

"Hi Trey," Sal said, "how's the family?"

Trey was silent.

"Is that really how you treat an old friend?" Sal said.

Trey shrugged.

"That's too bad," Sal smiled. "Drop your weapon Milo."

Milo stood stock still, her gun still pointed at Trey.

"You don't want to do that," Sal said. "Once you get rid of him, we're still going to catch you."

"You _know_ him," Milo said. "You don't want him to get hurt."

Sal shrugged. "It could go either way."

"Well, if you told me what you wanted with me, maybe we could make a deal, if not, Trey goes down and I go with you," Milo suggested.

Sal laughed. "It doesn't work like that."

"Put the gun down Milo," Trey said under his breath.

"Smart boy," Sal agreed. "Put down the gun and put on some clothes."

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The Joker prowled his lair, walking in circles like a caged animal, his shoulders hunched as his minions watched anxiously.

"Where. Is. She?" he said slowly.

No one responded.

"WHERE IS SHE!?" he shouted.

"I don't know boss," King said shakily.

"Do you think Batman got her?" Ace asked hopefully. "After you kicked his ass?"

The Joker rubbed a bruise on his face he had received when fighting with Batman, he winced as the pain shot up his jaw bone.

"No," the Joker said. "If he had I would know. So where the hell is she?"

"I don't know," Ace said, sulking.

"Well," the Joker hissed. "Find her!"

The men rushed out of the room, Ace colliding with Deuce on their way out, the Joker sat heavily on his couch, rubbing his temples with the tips of his leather clad fingers. Milo had better not have run out on him, especially for Batman, if she had, he'd kill them both. It would make his life more boring, but much simpler, he wasn't sure what he should value more.

* * *

Trey looked between Milo and Sal Marconi, waiting for something to happen.

"Put down the gun," Sal said one more time.

"I can't do that," Milo said, baring her teeth. "I'm sorry Mr. Marconi but I can't put my gun down unless you make me an offer."

"Well, I can't do that either," Sal said. "So I suppose you and Trey die."

"We had a deal you son of a bitch!" Trey exclaimed. "I made a deal with you!"

"Deals change," Sal said casually.

"I'm sorry I have to do this," Milo sighed, swinging her gun around to face Sal Marconi.

The door swung open for the second time that morning.

"What the fuck?" Milo snapped angrily. "Has no one ever heard of privacy?"

"What the hell is going on here?" Ace yelled.

Milo shot Sal Marconi first and his two hired hands second before turning to Ace.

"Trey?" Ace asked. "How are you still alive?"

"It's a long story," Trey sighed.

"Which you will keep a secret unless you want to be killed," Milo threatened, still clutching the gaudy flowered sheets from the motel bed around her body.

"I don't think you're in any position to threaten me," Ace grinned, crossing his arms in triumph.

"You foul little weasel!" Milo growled. "You wouldn't!"

"I would," Ace said. "I will."

"Your idiocy is wearing on me," Milo snapped. "I should kill you and dump you with these bastards. But I'll make you a deal instead."

"What is it?" Trey asked.

"You will _not_ tell the Joker about this, and I will bring you the Batman," Milo offered. "And you can give him personally to the Joker."

"How do I know you'll keep up your end of the deal?" Ace asked.

"How do I know you will?" Milo shot back.

Ace scowled.

* * *

The Joker looked up from his work as Milo stepped in; flanked by Ace, clothed in the same outfit she had left the hideout in the previous day.

"You fucked up Milo," the Joker growled. "Bad."

"I went with a different plan," Milo said smoothly, looking down her nose at the Joker through hooded eyes.

"Right," the Joker said sarcastically. "What, ah, plan was that?"

"Kill Sal Marconi," Milo said nonchalantly.

"That wasn't the plan," the Joker hissed, standing and clenching his fists.

"It is now," Milo explained. "It was quite…spur of the moment."

Her eyes flashed to Ace for a minute.

"Is there something you want to tell me Ace?" the Joker asked in a threatening voice, advancing on the nervous man.

Milo glared at Ace, shooting daggers with her eyes as he opened his mouth.

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**Yeah, it was kinda boring, I promise more excitement in the next one. Ten reviews for a new chapter please!**


	22. Chapter 22: Pet

**Haha! Am writing again. But just for one or two chapters and then I will be MIA again and then I will write one or two chapters and the cycle will go on thusly. But the story will go on. It must. I missed it. Please sit down, strap in and enjoy the newest chapter.**

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Ace stood there with his mouth hanging open, looking from Milo to the Joker and back again with frantic eyes, Milo's hand moved closer to her pocket, tension saturated the room, the Joker's heavy breathing rose and fell with Ace's pounding heartbeat.

"Well?" the word rang out in the silence.

"Trey's alive," Ace muttered, hanging his head.

Milo's dark eyebrows shot up, that was the last thing she had expected to happen. The Joker laughed, another thing Milo would never have guessed was coming, she ran her fingertips along the smooth metal cylinder concealed beneath her clothing.

"I know," the Joker grinned.

"Bu-but how?" Ace stuttered, Milo kept her mouth clamped shut, processing this information, attempting to compute how best to react.

"You think I wouldn't know that little Milo, excuse me, _dollface_, was planning something?" the Joker's lips twisted into a maniacal grin. "You have that little faith in me Ace?"

The Joker turned to Milo, she flinched backwards.

"And you think I don't know about your little romance with Trey,_ dollface_? I know everything that goes on in this town, and trust me, _ha he ho_, if I hadn't wanted any of it to happen, it wouldn't, _uh_, have."

Milo's brows drew themselves together across her forehead.

"You're just a stupid little bitch," the Joker stepped forwards towards Milo. "But you're _my_ bitch."

Milo bit her lip, a bead of blood squeezing out between her pearly teeth.

"So take that nice little grenade out of your pocket and give it to me," the Joker took another step forwards.

Milo reached deep into her pocket, pulling the metal sphere out and handing it to the Joker, he took it in his leather gloved hands and tossed it to Ace who caught it fearfully. Milo backed up a step.

"No." the Joker's voice stung like a slap and Milo stopped moving.

A strong hand wrapped itself around Milo's throat, lifting her off the floor, her feet thrashed but she couldn't free herself.

"Sleeping with Trey was an interesting twist," the Joker mused. "I didn't expect that, but hey, there's always a variable, isn't there? Although it's usually me."

Milo scrabbled frantically at the Joker's leather gloves.

"I'm not going to kill you Milo," the Joker's breath blew back strands of hair from Milo's face. "No, I, _haha_, I like you too much. But you're _very_ stupid and you've been demoted, you're not my partner. You're my pet."

The Joker dropped Milo and she lay on the ground, coughing and wheezing as she inhaled as much air as she could into her lungs, the Joker looked at her decrepit form sordidly and struck her in the ribs with his glossy, purple shoe. Milo coughed up blood.

"Ace, deal with it!" the Joker instructed as he swept out of the room.

Ace put Milo's grenade down carefully on the floor and strode over to her, a triumphant grin on his handsome face, a shock of hair falling in front of his eyes; he pushed it back with a grimy hand.

"You _are_ one stupid bitch," Ace laughed as he grasped Milo by the hair and dragged her upright.

Milo looked up at Ace from beneath heavily lidded eyes, rage searing through her gaze, she raked her nails across Ace's smug face, she may be the Joker's bitch, but that didn't mean she couldn't make Ace hurt.

"Fuck!" Ace swore and clubbed Milo in the head with his fist, holding her up by the back of her shirt.

He hit her once more, she spat out a tooth, glistening red and white against the grey flooring.

"I'm going to kill you," she hissed. "You bastard. I'm going to kill you, and I'm going to kill that whore I know you've been seeing and then, no, I'm not going to kill you, I'm going to rip out _all_ your teeth. And then I'm going to rip out her teeth. You are going to die, but it's going to hurt like a _bitch_ before you die. I want you to beg for your life you miserable fuck."

Ace laughed, emboldened by the Joker's own self-assured demeanor.

"You laugh now," Milo growled, Ace dragging her away and down a set of dingy stairs into the basement. "In then end, you'll be dead and _I_ will be laughing."

Ace laughed harder. He pulled open the door at the end of the hallway, pushing Milo in, smiling wider as she stumbled and fell, scraping her forearms on the rough floor. The sound of the door closing and locking rang in Milo's ears as she stood on wobbly legs, observing the room she never knew was in the basement and the torn souls that huddled within. Milo stared at the frail gaggle of people that crouched in the far corner, only partially human, the major part of them animal. The smell of urine and unwashed flesh hit Milo like a brick wall

A young boy with what was once blonde hair stood up, his back bent from crouching, he beckoned to Milo shyly, she knew she looked intimidating, standing in the shadows, face stained with blood, steel eyes dissecting the inhabitants.

"You filthy bastard," Milo growled, addressing the Joker, whom, to her knowledge, couldn't hear her. "I had no idea you swung that way."

The once-blonde boy beckoned to Milo again, moving within arms reach of her, holding out his filthy hand, Milo curled her lip and loosed a feral snarl at the boy, if she was stuck down here, she _would_ rule the place. As expected, the boy rushed back to his pack as though he'd been kicked. Milo strode over to them, crouching down as she reached their huddle, swatting them out of her way as she looked at what they were squatted around.

It was a fork.

A woman with dark, matted hair refused to budge when Milo shoved against her, she shared the same nose as the boy with the dirty hair, if Milo had to guess, she'd say that this woman was his mother. The woman let a small growl slide between her lips. Milo growled back, fiercer, prepared for a fight, her hands hooked into claws by her sides. The woman advanced, walking with a strange hunched posture as she pressed towards Milo.

Milo fumbled as she tucked her skirt up into its waistband, getting it out of her way and matching the woman's crouched stance. Suddenly, the woman loosed a loud roar and launched herself at Milo, Milo released an equally crude hiss and moved instantly to the side, grabbing the woman by her hair as she shot by and throwing her with a dull thud to the floor of the room.

The woman lay still for a moment before hurdling to her feet and redoubling her attack on Milo, she raked her fingers across Milo's face, leaving red furrows on Milo's skin, she recoiled as she felt the pain shoot white hot across her face, outrage boiling in her chest and she threw herself unreservedly at the dirty boy's mother. Milo pinned the woman to the floor and hit her until she stopped struggling, her knuckles covered in blood and flesh.

She turned back to the little group who watched her with fearful eyes, drew back her top lip, exposing her teeth and growled at them, leaving the little not-blonde boy to tend to his mother as she snatched the fork from the circle and made her way back to the door.

The sound of the little boy wailing filled the air but Milo paid no attention, she threaded her arms through the bars of the window in the door and felt downwards for the lock, she found the little hole and inserted a tine of the fork into the slot, wiggling it around gently. There was a snap and the thin bit of metal broke off. Milo cursed and maneuvered the fork until one of its three remaining tines was in the lock again.

She stood there for hours, fiddling with the fork in the lock; hours in which the once-blonde boy brought his mother back to wakefulness, in which she retreated to lick her wounds and the rest of the family group huddled around her. Every so often, one of the people would move and Milo would turn, snarling and they would shrink back into hiding.

At last, something broke the monotony, but it was not the satisfying click of the door unlocking, it was the sound of footsteps and disturbed laughter far down the hallway. Milo dropped the fork; she looked at it and swore, but kept her arms hanging through the bars, a mask languid casualty sliding onto her face.

"Hello doll," the Joker said as he came into view. "Enjoy your stay?"

"Quite," Milo replied, observing the man through hooded eyes.

The Joker inspected her face closer, seeing the claw marks on her face, he laughed, clapping his hands together.

"Oh hoh!" he laughed giddily. "Someone's been very, _uh_, naughty. _Ha ah ha ah _!"

Milo shrugged.

"Do you like being a part of my little menagerie?" the Joker asked as he slid back a deadbolt that Milo hadn't seen, she bit her tongue to keep a curse from leaving her mouth. "It's nice right?"

Milo shrugged again.

"Ah, well, you'll get your….fight back," the Joker smiled. "Tonight should be a nice demonstration of that."

Milo cringed and snarled as the group of feral people behind her shifted.

"Kitty's got claws," the Joker grinned, opening the door and wrapping his gloved hand in Milo's hair.

The grey eyed woman allowed herself to be dragged down the hall, back up the stairs, through the main room where Ace, King and Deuce were watching television, all but Ace turned around to stare as Milo spat profanities at the Joker's crone. Ace cringed as the heavy metal door at the far end of the room slammed shut behind the Joker, Deuce and King looked at him for answers, he buried his face in his hands, this life was far more complicated than he ever thought it would be. If only he had known.

The Joker let go of Milo's hair, she was grateful that he didn't toss her to the floor, but not grateful enough to say anything. He circled her, examining her body, the tears in her skin and her tattered clothing, torn from her fight with the once-blonde boy's mother.

"Well, well, what have _we_ been up to?" he grinned, licking his painted lips.

Milo hung her head.

"Oh don't be like _that_ !" the Joker giggled, turning to the porcelain tub and turning on the water.

Milo frowned as the Joker advanced on her, but she didn't flinch away, her fascination taking over her survival instincts, her desire to know more about this man, desire to cut him open and find out what made him tick. The Joker removed his gloves in a ceremonial fashion, placing them on the edge of the sink as the tub filled slowly.

The painted grinning man reached for Milo and she stepped forwards, his cold, gloveless hands meeting her skin and making her shudder. His fingers worked quickly, unbuttoning Milo's blouse with ease revealing her bare skin and black bra, the Joker worked on her skirt next, unzipping it with the same ritual air that he had with his gloves, it dropped to the ground around Milo's feet. Next the Joker unhooked the clasp of Milo's bra, dropping it to the floor next to the rest of her clothes.

The mad-man's eyes roved over her body and he licked his lips again as he reached for the waistband of her underwear, the small bit of black fabric was added to the pile of dirty clothes on the floor.

Only seconds later, the Joker stripped off his purple jacket and rolled up his sleeves, displaying strong forearms, Milo felt a strange twinge in her stomach as he reached for her. He guided Milo over to the tub, full of water now and lifted her in, when she was centimeters from the surface of the water, he dropped her. As Milo hit the water, submerging completely, she realized it was ice cold, the air forced itself out of her lungs and she broke the surface, gasping desperately for oxygen, the cold stinging her wounds.

She heard the Joker laugh, her previously sweet feeling disappeared and bitter anger coated her tongue like coppery blood.

"You're messed up nicely," the Joker said, running his fingers along the deep scratches that crossed Milo's face. "These will scar real nice. _Hee ha ho, ha ho ha hee_!"

"Go fuck yourself," Milo said as a last resort, her teeth chattering violently.

The Joker smiled and plunged his hands into the ice cold water, pulling Milo's hand out from where they were covering herself, he inspected them, bits of blood and flesh still clung to her fingers, dirt wedged under her nails.

"You killed her, didn't you?" the Joker asked with a curious glint in his eyes.

"She challenged my authority," Milo responded, pulling her hands from the Joker's grasp and wrapping them back around herself.

"Don't be so, _uh_, shy," the Joker reprimanded, reaching for a sponge and a bar of soap.

He rubbed the soap onto the wet sponge and put the bar of soap back down, rubbing the rough washing utensil to clear dirt and blood from Milo's skin, she closed her eyes, begging for it to end as soon as it could. The Joker washed the entire length of Milo's scrawny body, finishing with her hair, rubbing the soap into the tangled mass of dark locks. Milo tried to lean back and rinse her hair, but the Joker grabbed the back of her head and forced her head down between her knees, holding her face underwater as Milo struggled against his grip.

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**And, end scene. Hope you guys like it, it's a little different than I intended, but it's also nice and long and it will get absolutely more wonderful in the next chapter, there might be two more, depending on how long the next chapter runs. Anyhow, keep a look out for the next installment! Message and review!**


	23. Chapter 23: Face Time

**Second chapter that I wrote today! Hurrah. Hope you like it, I think I will. Kinda stoked on this being chapter 23, maybe I'll make it to 30 eventually, because I know for a fact that this story is nowhere near its end.**

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Just as Milo thought the Joker would never allow her head to surface the water, the pressure at the back of her skull lessened and she pulled her face out of the frigid water, gasping, her whole skin crawling.

"Now, you didn't think I'd let you die, just like that, did you?" the Joker asked in a menacing sing-song voice. "No, no, no, I couldn't do that, you're still important, even if you're stupid."

Milo bristled at the remark as the Joker reached between her knees and let the water empty from the porcelain bathtub, they sat in silence, the only sound was the slow, steady rush of water being sucked down the drain and through the pipes that ran beneath the bathroom. Once the water was gone, the Joker dragged Milo out of the tub; she stumbled over the edge and fell, her chin bouncing off the floor, jarring her teeth.

She stood as quickly as possibly, but it was still too late, the Joker's eyes glittered with an entirely new kind of hunger. He licked his lips for a third time, already unbuttoning his vest, tossing the bit of material down with Milo's clothes, soon just as naked as Milo, the dark haired woman wrapped her arms about herself, but the Joker pried them off.

"It's been too long," he hissed in satisfaction, grasping Milo's wrists and shoving her up against the wall.

She could feel every plane of his honed body, and to her surprise, she enjoyed the touch of his skin to hers and she pressed herself to him eagerly, a chuckle escaped his throat and Milo ran her fingers through his hair, tugging roughly to bring his mouth back to his. The Joker let out a grunt and dug his fingers into Milo's back, she arched her spine, lost in the feel of the Joker's body, she reveled in it, this new kind of touch, not gentle like Trey, rough, passionate and untamed.

The lights were a blur and the bathroom spun around the two of them until Milo's eyes crossed and she could only feel, touch, smell and taste, not see, not hear past her own ragged breathing. She predominantly felt. She felt the Joker, she felt the cold tile of the bathroom floor against her back. She felt blood running down her back from god knows what. She felt him bite her. She felt so much. She tasted second most. She tasted him. She tasted blood. She tasted greasepaint. She tasted alcohol. She tasted the strangest new sensations. And lastly, third most, she smelled. She could smell him all around her. She smelled sin. She smelled liquor. She smelled blood. She smelled bleach. She smelled chlorine. She smelled things she never wanted to let go.

Milo blinked slowly, the darkness behind her eyelids fading and she focused on the dingy white tile of the bathroom floor. She was still in the bathroom. An empty bottle of whisky was clutched in her right hand. Milo sat up, she was still naked, her clothes were gone, in their place, a pristine, white towel, practically glowing compared to the rest of the bathroom.

She groaned, got up and wrapped the towel around herself, she looked around furtively, the Joker was nowhere to be seen so Milo turned to the mirror, intending to inspect the nail marks that ran the width of her face. She looked at her reflection and loosed a scream.

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**Oh my attempts at suspense are very sad. That's the only reason I'm cutting this chapter short. Review, rate, message etc. etc. **


	24. Chapter 24: Hanged

**This story is quite honestly starting to scare the pants off me. It's out of control. Ugh, I don't want to **_**know**_** what would happen if it got free of my sad sad grip on it. Actually, it would probably be a heck of a lot better. Well, hope you like. **

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White greasepaint covered Milo's face, bloody furrows and all. A red grin was painted over her lips and her eyes were ringed in black. She clutched one hand to her chest, holding the towel closed over her breast, her other hand was gripping the edge of the sink.

A laugh came from outside the door.

"I thought you deserved a makeover for being so…charming last night," the Joker cackled.

Milo scrubbed at her face, standing at the sink until the paint was completely gone, halfway through, the Joker came in and stood silently next to Milo as she washed her face. She glared at the Joker as she wiped her dripping face on the back of her arm.

"You really _are_ an animal, aren't you pet?" the Joker grinned. "I like it."

Milo focused on her breathing as she raged inside, with a tiny bit of joy coursing through her veins at the memory of the prior night.

"What do you want?" Milo said through her teeth, using all of her self control to keep a civil tone.

"I've arranged a blind date for you!" the Joker grinned. "To make up for your mistakes."

Milo nodded, she really was the Joker's bitch, and she really had fucked up.

"When?" she asked, still seething at the loss of her pocket watch.

The Joker pulled a glittering item out of his coat pocket, flipped the top of it open and inspected its face. "Now."

Milo's eyes widened as she saw what the Joker held.

"That's mine!" she howled, lunging for it.

Suddenly, Milo couldn't breathe, the Joker's fist connected with her throat and she was on the floor again.

"No Milo, you're mistaken," the Joker growled. "It's mine."

Milo gasped for breath as the Joker dropped a pile of clothing on the spasming woman, turning on his heel and leaving the bathroom. Once Milo could breathe again, she picked up the dress that had been thrown on her. It looked like something a hooker would wear. Milo wrinkled her nose in disgust but pulled it on anyway, checking her reflection in the mirror her fears were reaffirmed, she did indeed look like a whore.

A whore with scabbing lines on her face, she opened the cupboard beneath the sink and found a pot of flesh coloured paste, she dabbed some over her wounds, disguising them only the slightest bit. She glared at her face and left the bathroom, her heels clicking on the floor as she entered the main room.

Ace turned from polishing his gun and laughed, spewing filthy profanities at Milo about what he'd like to do to her and what he'd do if he had her alone, she started for him with her hands curled into fists, but madder heads intervened.

"Ah, ah, no Milo, we mustn't bite," the Joker grinned, causing Ace to grin as he realized he had gotten away with what he had just said.

The Joker observed Milo.

"Don't you look nice," the Joker said cuttingly, checking Milo's pocket watch, she dug her fingernails into her palm to keep from snatching it back. "But enough of that, you've got an appointment."

The Joker herded Milo towards the door that led to the outside, pushing her in front of him, holding the outer door open. A black limousine idled in the street.

"They'll take you where you need to, _uh_, go," the Joker grinned, keeping Milo just back from the door. "But before you go, I've got a gift."

Quick as a snake, the Joker reached into his pocket and pulled out what looked like a trigger for an explosive device, he pressed it as Milo stood by sullenly, expecting death to sweep her off her feet. A dark figure swung down from above the door, colliding with Milo, the resulting sound was a wet thump, Milo let out a little scream of surprise and stumbled back, getting a better look at the man hanging dead from his neck, dripping blood onto the floor.

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**Sorry this is kinda short too. But for suspense's sake only. Review, review, review and be very afraid.**


	25. Chapter 25: Blind Date

**4****th**** in two days. Hurrah! I'd have posted sooner but is being a jerk and not letting me upload. Enjoy, remember to review and message me. No flames, if you don't like, don't read. Constructive criticism is welcome but constructive **_**only**_**.**

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Milo wiped the dead man's blood off her face, peering at the features of the corpse as it twisted slowly around, the Joker cackled wildly, wiping the tears of laughter that pricked at the corners of his eyes away.

"You should have _seen_ your face," he howled, a wild grin on his painted face.

Milo stepped forwards, turning the cadaver around slowly so its front faced her. She looked into the face and vomited over the floor.

Wiping her mouth, Milo stood from where she had bent to vomit.

"Trey," she whispered, touching the man's cold face, his skin felt foreign beneath the burnt tips of her fingers.

The Joker laughed harder.

"Trey!" Milo shouted, her hands scrabbling over his bloated face.

The tips of her fingers connected with something inhuman, a thin line running just beneath Trey's chin, Milo hooked her nails beneath it and pulled, Trey's face peeled off like soft wax revealing the face of a pockmarked man below.

"Hmmm," the Joker clucked. "It seems Trey is invincible."

"You bastard," Milo growled, lunging for the Joker's throat.

"Bad kitty," the Joker giggled as he clubbed Milo to the floor. "You'll ruin your makeup, Trey's just fine, he's got the master suite!"

"Trey is here?" Milo asked in disbelief, a muscle in her neck twitching as she ground her teeth together.

"Of course!" the Joker replied, switching to a darker tone. "He stays alive only if you listen to me, one mistake and he dies."

Milo swallowed.

"What if I don't care?"

"You might as well go kill him yourself then," the Joker mused.

Milo stared at the man's painted face, attempting to discern whether he was bluffing or not, he remained emotionless beneath the white pancake makeup on his skin.

"Good girl," the Joker crooned. "Now I want you to get into that limo and do your job."

Milo spat in the Joker's face and pushed around the dead man's body that hung limply by the neck in the doorway, she opened the limousine's door, slipped in and instantly let out a barrage of vulgar language intended for the Joker, but she couldn't say to his face. The limousine rumbled off and Milo watched the Joker take the dead man's hand and wave it after her like a parent does to their child. Milo grimaced.

Once the limousine had turned the corner, Milo reached for the handle to open the door, she pulled it, but the door did not open, she jiggled the handle harder, the door still refused to open. Milo swore bitterly.

A plain, manila envelope lay on the seat next to her, she look at it out of the corner of her eyes and snatched it up off the plush leather, ripping the sealed end open with her teeth and sliding a sheet of paper out. She clutched the paper between her fingers and read the scribbled message, instructions printed clearly in black permanent marker, mocking Milo, she growled deep in her throat.

_Doll,_

_You know what's going on. Don't screw up, you know who depends on you_

_J_

Milo hissed, crumpled the paper between her fingers and hurled it to the floor, this did nothing to satisfy her insatiable rage. She hated that she was attached to Trey, but what would happen if he was killed; the Joker would force her to kill him if she didn't escape, or maybe if she did. Milo was almost positive either way Trey was going to die if she didn't go out on a limb. So she sat back, her foot bobbing up and down as she formulated a plan.

The limousine pulled to a halt, Milo tried the door, this time it opened, she stepped out onto the street, standing before the city's swankiest restaurant as her transportation lurched back into the street, leaving her stranded. The tastefully dressed women stared at Milo with distaste, Milo stared back and the women flinched away, Milo lifted her chin in triumph and entered the restaurant, striding straight towards the man standing behind a small podium in the entrance, what did they call them, Milo wondered, something French she was sure.

"Good evening miss," the man said politely, struggling to keep his gaze from drifting downwards from Milo's face.

"Table 14 please," Milo said, smiling seductively.

"Yes, right this way," the man said, turning away.

Milo had to give him props, he hadn't once looked down at her chest, it was a shame that he would most likely die if she got her way. The man led her through the tastefully lit room and into the back section, divided by heavy, expensive looking draperies.

He gestured towards one particular section and Milo nodded in thanks, pushing back the curtains and entering the space beyond, lit by a dim overhead chandelier and flickering candles. A man sat at the table, his face darkened by shadows.

"Mr. Wayne," Milo said tersely.

Bruce looked up.

"Milo," he grimaced. "You're looking well, please, have a seat."

"Thank you," Milo replied civilly.

"I suppose the Joker's sent you here to give me a message then?" Bruce asked.

"He did," Milo said. "But that's not what I'm going to do."

Bruce waited without speaking.

"I want to cut a deal," Milo whispered, leaning across the table conspiratorially. "The Joker is in…possession of something that is very important to me, as long as he is in possession of it, I cannot disobey him."

Bruce marveled at how incredibly civil Milo could be sometimes.

"What are you offering me," Mr. Wayne asked.

"My undying gratitude and the Joker's head on a stick," Milo said, stabbing her knife into the table for effect.

"I believe we tried a deal such as this before, it didn't work out so well."

Milo held her breath.

"I cannot chance it." Bruce finished.

"You've made your grave, now go lie in it," Milo said, standing to leave. "I have other appointments."

Bruce grasped her wrist. "What was the Joker's message."

"I've just told you," Milo said. "Now let go of my arm."

"You know I can't do that," Bruce replied. "The commissioner wants you almost as badly as he wants the Joker."

Milo giggled. "My, he's certainly the player isn't he?"

Bruce's other hand covered Milo's mouth.

"We're going to see him right now," he said.

"Am I interrupting something?" the man who had directed Milo to Bruce's table asked, peering in.

Bruce let go of Milo as though he'd been electrocuted.

"No," he said. "We're fine thank you."

"A package has arrived for you," the man said, addressing Milo.

"Thank you," Milo said, accepting the package and shoving the knife she had selected from the table through the man's chest.

He collapsed with a gurgle, Bruce bent onto his knees and checked the man's pulse, it beat weakly for a moment and faded into nothing, Bruce let the man fall to the floor as Milo tore open the package that had been handed to her.

She read the note enclosed and pulled out the brightly coloured object from within the crumpled paper, it was a gas mask, she covered her face with it as a hissing filled the room. Bruce turned to stare at her in horror, Milo shrugged and backed up and Bruce's eyes rolled skywards and he dropped to the floor atop the man Milo had killed. She heard similar thudding sounds as people throughout the restaurant also collapsed.

Milo swore into her brightly coloured gas mask, she held it to her face with one hand and bent down, cursing, next to Bruce, the only man that could get her out of the mess she had gotten herself into. He was alive, just barely, Milo sighed, she dragged his body out of the curtained area and hid it away behind another velvet hanging.

She heard music approaching and she pushed her way back into the curtained area that she and Bruce had been in, sitting down and staring with a bored expression across the table. Seconds later, the Joker pushed his way in, followed by Ace who was holding a heavy boombox on his shoulder. Milo stifled a laugh and he glared at her.

The Joker, however, walked straight up to Milo and pulled her to stand and twirled her around until she was dizzy, laughing maniacally before pushing her back down into her chair which she promptly fell out of.

Milo lay on the floor, winded and watching the lights spinning around her, the Joker's face, or rather three, came into view.

"So, my pet?" he asked, hauling her into her chair, Milo shoved him away from her.

The Joker laughed, grabbing Milo's chin in a gloved hand and forcing a sloppy kiss on her mouth, Milo wrapped her hands in his hair and yanked, the Joker's head snapped back and he slapped Milo, laughing quietly under his breath as he rubbed the pain that buzzed under his scalp away.

"He was a no-show," Milo spat. "Why the hell did you think he'd show up anyway?"

"Because he's ol' Batty Boy!" the Joker cackled. "That's what he does, he comes to the rescue, criminal or not."

"Apparently not," Milo growled as she pulled herself upright, holding the edge of the table for support. "Apparently he cares about me just as little as you do."

"Oh, don't be like _that_ doll," the Joker grinned. "I care about you! After all, I'm going to let you see Trey tonight, aren't I? Or I was until you messed up."

"I didn't mess up," Milo shouted. "It's not my fault Bruce Wayne stood me up!"

"He didn't stand you up," the Joker said. "I know that for a fact."

An evil grin crossed the Joker's painted face and Milo paused, unsure of what she should do, give up Bruce and see Trey or keep him hidden and be punished all the same.

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**This one isn't as good as it should have been, but oh well. What would y'all think if I started a Supernatural fanfic? Anyhow, review for a new chapter!**


	26. Chapter 26: This Ends Now

**Hm, this is the most I've written in such a short period of time. I am quite proud of myself, but also quite disappointed in the small amount of reviews I've been getting. Honestly, if you read this, how hard is it to jot down a little note to me, it's always appreciated. So review.**

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"Fuck you," Milo yelled at the Joker instead of having to make a decision.

The Joker laughed, and moments later, Milo dissolved into a fit of giggles as well, entirely unsure of why she was laughing, the Joker, still cackling, pulled out a chair for Milo, gesturing dramatically for her to sit. She obeyed, bleeding from the lips, as the Joker sat opposite her, snapping his fingers at Ace who produced two plates covered in silver domes and set them before the Joker and Milo.

The Joker lifted the lid of his first, a steak sat on the plate before him, Milo lifted hers gingerly, it was a seared chicken breast upon a bed of rice, she looked inquisitively at the Joker who was cutting at his steak savagely.

"Dig in," he instructed.

Milo cut off a small piece of chicken and raised it to her lips, the Joker's gaze fixed on her mouth, she was just sliding it unsurely between her lips when the phone at the front desk of the restaurant rang. The Joker froze and so did Milo, the purple clad man snapped his fingers, Ace turned off the boombox by his feet, they could now hear sirens howling outside.

The Joker cursed and grasped Milo's wrist, dragging her out of the curtained area, leaving Ace to fend for himself. The Joker pulled Milo up the stairs, she stumbled and fell, hitting her already bruised face on the floor, hot tears pricked at her eyes as she bit her tongue. The Joker screamed at her to get up, so Milo removed her heels, stood and shot up the stairs past the Joker, running for her life quite literally, she was faster than the Joker, but he had time to plan this, she had to be wary for traps. As she skidded into the top floor of the building, she could hear the Joker crashing up the stairs behind her, Milo reached under her skirt and unhooked the gun she had strapped to her thigh, bracing herself and aiming the gun at the door where the Joker would come through.

This would end now.

The Joker entered the room, panting, Milo pulled the trigger, nothing happened. The Joker grinned triumphantly advancing towards Milo who backed slowly towards the far end of the room, the wall made of windows.

Milo snatched a letter opener off a nearby desk as she made her way backwards through the working man's maze, the Joker threw back his head and laughed, Milo spat in his direction.

"You bastard," she shouted. "You fixed me up!"

"Of course dollface," the Joker shrugged.

"You're going to kill me?" Milo asked, she was backed up against a window and the Joker was leisurely making his way towards her, giggling.

Milo weighed her options.

"Maybe," the Joker replied.

"Maybe means yes, doesn't it?"

"_Uh_, maybe."

"Fuck."

Milo pulled the rolling desk chair that sat quietly behind the last desk in the row that sprawled out before her towards her and lifted it, adjusting its position in her arms before turning and hurling it through the window behind her.

She ducked, covering her head and face with her hands as the glass shattered, showering her and cutting her skin. When she stood up, the Joker had stopped.

He laughed. "You're too afraid."

"Try me," Milo growled, inching forwards so her toes hung off the edge of the drop and the wind buffeted her, she held her arms out, balancing.

And then the Joker was behind her, his hands pulling on her, pulling her back and towards the floor. Milo pulled the opposite way, trying to use her body weight to pull the Joker out the broken window. They grappled with each for a moment before the Joker slipped on the glass, falling to his stomach, Milo hanging by one hand out the window, eighteen stories from the ground.

The Joker looked at her, police lights shining on them casting Milo's injuries into sharp relief, the furrows on her face, the scars on her arms and legs, the determined expression on her face as she reached for his lapels with a determined expression. He tried to move out of the way, but he was too slow, the adrenaline racing through Milo's system was quicker. She grasped his lapels, pulling him flat on his front, and dragged herself up until she was face to face with his own paint smeared features, she kissed him and let herself drop slightly, arms shaking.

"This. Ends. Now." Milo said, letting her weight drop and sending herself and the Joker tumbling over the edge into empty space.

A crazed laugh permeated the air as a police spotlight followed their descent.

* * *

**This made me very sad to write. Happy reading all. Review.**


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